


Dyed in the Wool

by glimmerFae (verfens)



Series: The Weight of Love [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Depression, Hallucinations, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, M/M, Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s), Pre-Recall, Slow Build, Slow Burn, feat. mc76, its cause theyre drunk and sad and are missing gabe, like. the SLOWest burn, recall fic, side not-quite-hate-fucking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2018-12-20 17:37:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11925864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verfens/pseuds/glimmerFae
Summary: Jesse McCree was the first man these days to say he had a problem, or a few. One, he's an outlaw, two, he's got lil' more than a small drinking problem, and three, he's still on the hunt for answers years after Zurich with no real leads- and he's doin' it all by his lonesome. All in an attempt to match up with the person that he knows he's become after working all those years with Gabriel Reyes, the man he can now say, at almost 40, was the love of his life.That bein' said- When he goes looking into his own past, he finds something that sure as hell seems like a sign from someone he thought was long dead- from beyond the grave, perhaps.  But Jesse's more a man of the physical.  Years have past, times have changed; the man in black flees across the desert, and -this time- the gunslinger follows.The sequel to Cigarette Daydream.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Can you believe it? I actually started that sequel i talked about! And it has a defined plot! What the fuck!
> 
> Not really a direct sequel to Cigarette Daydreams, but it might not make as much sense as it would if you haven't read it first. However, given that it deals with happier notes of Recall, you can expect that it wont be half as angsty as Cigarette Daydreams was. 
> 
> And if you've read my mcr76 story, well, it will have similar notes, but I feel confident it will read very differently, and it will also solely be Mcrey.

MARCH, 2075

There's something cursed about the first night you spend in someone else's home. Its unlike the feeling you get a hotel, and its unlike just visiting a place. Its somehow the complete fucking opposite of a liminal space- instead'a bein' the in between spot, you somehow felt like the unwilling voyeur on whatever the hell the occupants had ever done, past present and future, n' also like you're the other woman, or a third wheel to the Nth degree.

Now, if that feeling was amplified by the fact that Jesse McCree had broken in to this particular home and he had no Godly idea who the occupants were, that wasn't anyone's business but his damn self.

And that was how he'd found himself in someone else's kitchen, making coffee with some ol lady's very nice coffee machine, with someone else's coffee grounds. At least he was a good guest, cleaning up after his messes, and only sleeping on the couch. But hey, it was hard to get a motel when you were upstate of the gentrification line of Arizona, and the only option was a hotel that definitely woulda had questions for him.

Well, the rich white folks who lived here wouldn't really notice his presence. And he always provided his own alcohol, he thought self-deprecatingly as he held his flask, poised to pour a good serving of whiskey into his coffee.

"Really?" Came the familiar, disappointed voice, and Jesse doesn't even bother turning around. Merely snorted, and shrugged, taking a long pause to think over this particular decision, putting a hand to his forehead, in a useless attempt to see if he was feverish.

"You're right, Gabe." He addressed the specter, before downing the burnin' drink wholesale, straight from the flask. "Ain't no point in playing coy." He mumbled to nothin' in particular, seeing as the specter was gone, and he was alone.

And alone he'd been, for years now. Too many years, really.

He turned on the television, because there ain't no point to hiding from the worlds problems right now. The news rang off with the familiar story, of the Second Omnic Crisis, and the spillover from that. New death counts, totals, word of Russian resistance and new casualties in other parts of the world.

He sighed, watching it and rubbing his face, before sitting down with his coffee and whiskey.

The loneliness was really startin' to get to him, that he had to admit; his hallucinations were gettin' worse. The reason he was here, couped up in some rich persons home while he reorganized and reset himself, was 'cause he'd gone out all the way to Hanamura in search of a certain green cyborg asshole. 'Cause once upon a time, Genji and him hadn't exactly been friends, or enemies- but they'd really not just been coworkers either. They'd been somethin' a lil more, and a lil less. Somewhere in the in between. A liminal relationship. 

That last time they'd spoken had been in Watchpoint: Gibraltar, and it felt like a lifetime ago.

" _So you're drinking now."_

Genji's voice reverberated off in the back of his mind, as he sat there and drank from his flask, hand gently swirling the liquid within as he twirled it slowly around, head down as he thought back to it. Speak of- or really, McCree mused, think of- the devil, and he appeared.

The hallucinations weren't necessarily new; they'd been following him ever since the nightmare that had sent him running out of Overwatch to begin with. But admittedly, they were worse when he was drinking, and if you had to ask if McCree was drinking, then hell, he was sorry for your lack of basic abilities of perception.

He was drinking, yes, back then, and even now. He'd not even realized how bad he'd had it back then. Hell, he was well aware of his vice now, but still, the comment had stung, and it had stung badly, and he'd boiled beneath the surface.

" _Don't deflect me. I know how you feel about this mess McCree. There's no way you're just going to simply sit here and do nothing about it. They're going to come for people like us."_

Genji'd been right, on all ends. Genji was right about how he'd felt, back then, and was right about how McCree didn't wind up sittin' there, doin' nothin' about it. And they had come for him, oh Lord God above, they had come for him.

He took another harsh sip as the old pain struck him, his feelings too much for him to deal with. It was easier to cope when alcohol tempered the depression just to the point where he would be sad, but functional.

 _"Where will you be when all this goes wrong, Jesse McCree?"_ The specter of Genji asked him, and McCree had to rub his eyes and look down, from its accusatory glare, while the memory answered for him, so stupidly, naively wrong.

 _Angie's eyes, red from tears, her little hands balled up into tight lil' fists, shaking in her upset. "Genji. He...told me he was leaving. His mission was over, and so he was going to leave."_ Angie, dear Angie- he'd not seen her, not talked to her in  _years_. That was a mistake of his own making.

Torbjorn's face, stuck in horror, unable to find the words as both McCree and the newer baby of Overwatch, Tracer, assaulted him with the same question.  _"Rookie...McCree... No, Lena, and Jesse." The sorrowful look that melted onto his face. "She didn't make it back at all. Ana's dead."_

_Reinhardt, so boisterous and proud, his greyed head bent over in submission as he was forced into retirement, effective immediately after Ana's funeral._

_"I didn't see her. I wasn't there. I should have gone to her during Ramadan. I should have been with her for Eid. No, she can't be dead, she was barely in her 50s. She shouldn't have died. She can't be gone."_ Fareeha's cries at her funeral continued to echo in the empty space, the high ceilings of the house reverberating with her pain that she spilled out from her being in the way they were all feeling inside. Ana had been family, their friend. And she was gone. It hurt, even now. He tried to stop himself from thinking, tried to focus on the news, but found himself completely unable to. It took ahold of him, and just refused to let him go.

Torbjörn's rage after the funeral, when the whole base was working in a haze of grief and fear of the future- his dramatic exit from Overwatch also stirred around in his mind as he sipped his coffee, still trying to ignore his own head, shuffling along from the kitchen, trying to locate a computer.  _"We do everything we were asked for 20 odd years, and this is how you repay us?"_ Often, Jesse wondered the same damn thing, as he was now 36, having been doing what he felt was just for not yet 20 years- and nothin' to show for it but the warrant for his arrest and the bounty hanging over his head all the while as he hung his head.

 _And then there'd been the trial. His trial, of course, the one where he was put up for his misconduct by bein' in London when Blackwatch was benched, for stopping a bomb, saving the lives of 11 people, n' blowing his damn self up._  They were always so quick to place blame on others. But he finally found the computer, and signed in, quickly, as his guest user- Joel Morricone. He had to just publish a mostly written story, real fast, about what had gone down when he'd been away in Japan.

But the worst part of his memories, of those ghosts that taunted him in his many moments alone, was Gabriel himself.

_"Ingrate. Don't you know what everyone's done for you? What I've done for you? This is their fault, and I've done everything I can, and you still defend them. You, who have sat on your ass and himmed and hawed about not knowing what to do- about leaving. Talking with Amari all the time, scheming behind our backs."_

It had hurt. It had hurt him to the depth of his core- and he couldn't find the words to stop the black tar that was the hatred that spilled out of the man who he'd  _loved_.  _"Traitor. Should have known you would be one. You were so quick to turn on your bedfellows with Deadlock. Ingrate. I'm doing this for you, and you're telling me that we shouldn't?"_

And then the damned end of it all- with Gabriel's eyes cruel, and hard. " _Were you going to say we should run away together? Ridiculous. Something out of a children's fantasy. I wanted you because I thought you were beyond thinking of things like_ _ **love**_ _."_

But he wasn't. He had planned on asking him that. Because he wasn't beyond thinking, wanting, love.

 _"I won't be anywhere when things go wrong, 'cause things won't go wrong."_ He'd said to Genji back on their last night together at Gibraltar, and god, he hiccupped as he recalled how mistaken he was. His chest hurt as he remembered the end of that conversation  _"I will follow him to hell. That's what loyalty is. S' what love is."_  How completely fuckin' blind he'd been to the reality of his situation. And now here he was, 5 years past with nothin' to show for it except a crippling addiction to alcohol, hallucinations and ghosts hauntin' him at all hours of the day, and a few million dollars added to his name. And in the end, mocked for his own feelings by the person he felt them for.

But his tears weren't met with more specters. He was seemingly free of them, for the time being. He breathed hard, pulling himself through now that the episode had mercifully ended. So he just…rubbed his eyes, and kept on keeping on.

He finished writing his article, and uploaded it with ease from the rich folks computer, sighing as he read the title. "THE NEW PEACEKEEPERS: Vigilante Justice- Vital in a Post-Overwatch World?"

The article in itself was admittedly a bit of a leading question, but McCree was damn tired of always playing the villain and walking into his own noose, inadvertently tightening his rope.

It'd been 5 years since Gabe and Jack went down in flames with Zurich and Jesse's old life burning with them, 4 since Overwatch's collapse, and in McCree's fine opinion, that meant that some people were bound to start feelin' nostalgic for how things used to be. True, he'd been in Hanamura attempting to locate a particularly slippery ex-coworker of his, but the people there surely remember how much better the streets were after Blackwatch took down the Shimada clan. And now they're back...just like how people worldwide were likely nostalgic of when there'd been someone to take care of all their issues that their governments couldn't.

He wanted folks to change their minds about him, n' other vigilantes- he knew other ex-Overwatch folks had the same idea that he did, that they could still do good in the world…

He sighed, rubbing his temples as he sat at the computer, and stared at the photo of Hanamura's streets he'd included. …Being honest with himself, he'd thought he'd find Genji there, wanting to fight old ghosts and recreate old battles, just as Jesse did. The article in itself was really just…a way of getting the word out to anyone who was lookin'- that Jesse McCree was alive and well, n' lookin' for some good old-fashioned help. The article finished with suggesting that he was rounding up a posse- though the words weren't something he'd ever say aloud, per say, if Genji ever saw it, he'd know that it was McCree that had written it.

Genji's favorite long time mockery was accusing McCree of having a posse, given his only real experience with American culture prior to being in Overwatch was through movies. Genji had also had this rather twisted idea that Jesse was cosplaying, when really, that's just how some folks down where he grew up dressed. Now that he'd abandoned the Blackwatch look himself, he hoped…maybe, even though they'd parted on nasty terms, they could work together.

He finished looking at his article, having freshly updated the page, and eyed the side links. Beneath the recommended for you section was nothin' but the reminder that he was alone now- and that his sins were still ever present, ever needing accounting for.

"Deadlock Biker Club National Rally." Slick, but Jesse knew em better than that. He'd worked for em for years too, before Reyes plucked him out of the litter as the best damn marksman he'd ever seen with a six-shooter- and the only one to ever get a gun to Gabriel's head. The true reason he'd stood out all those years ago: his confidence as he held a gun to the temple of a super soldier, the hero of the omnic crisis, 12 years his senior, in the middle of his team. He'd gotten the drop on Gabriel, gotten up close n' personal, behind enemy lines without them ever noticing.

That had been their infamous first contact- made so by the Challenge Reyes would set to others, to see who could recreate that. But he digressed…Jesse knew Deadlock. Their new name was to not raise suspicion, but in the 21st century, they all knew the damage that rally's could do, and what types of folks it could bring out given what had happened in the second decade of the century.

But, that mess aside, Jesse McCree was now poised to continue Reyes' legacy, and clean up Deadlock now that its head got too big all over again and it'd become oversized pimple of the face of the American Plains. Now, that was a fair bit of a problem, considering the people round there hated his face. Deadlock propaganda always had a ring o' Truth to it- and it was no different when it was about him. He'd been turned over to the other side, and he'd come in with those millions hanging over his head and lead the town into despair. Or, they could act against him, and could turn him in and make somethin' more than two coins to rub together. Honestly, he understood them fine.

Money never really changed, see. Didn't really matter to folks if it was covered in blood when they got it out of the vending machine or when they turned in a relatively good man for the ghosts of a gang a lifetime ago. Least it felt like to him. Those times were over, not quite 20 years earlier. Finished when a man who, even now, meant the world to him despite how he was long since gone, took him in under his wing.

Not that these times were truly too much different. He just had a stronger sense of morality.

Which made him sigh,  _again_ , because he knew how this was going to go down, if he did show up. But he also knew himself, even if things had gotten a lil more foggy over the years, given how Overwatch's fall and Reyes…had made him question himself, and his loyalties, and his personal sense of justice.

But he also knew, show his face there and he'd get another couple hundred added to his bounty, and there was a mighty big chance he could fuck up this mission he assigned himself. But if he didn't, if he let them get away... it would just become a bigger and bigger problem. Not just to America, but to the world. "Someone has to do it, seems fitting it'd be me." McCree murmured, rubbing his face logged out of the computer, staring at the other article's description.

" _The Crisis is over- but the search for answers isn't."_

That it wasn't. And McCree was still searching for em.

And one day, he'd have em all, 'cause even the devil was bound to get right, and in the eyes of society, that'd be him.

Gabriel Reyes might have changed in the end, but that didn't mean that Jesse would just sit by and let his hard work against the scourge of the southwest fade from living memory. Transporting WMDs made the whole world a whole lot less safe, and it was about time for someone to pay for it.

After all…a bomb like the one that had blown up Zurich had to have come from somewhere- and Jesse had gotten an inkling of who the supplier was, after he'd seen photos of what the bomb in London had left of itself. Well, really, more than an inkling of who. He knew Deadlock's handiwork from intimate experience, and the more he remembered of his patchwork memories from his stint in London, the more he recalled how easy it had been to disable the damn thing. But that meant Deadlock had been back for a while now. The whole biker club thing had been going for a while, but it was awful strange that they'd had no missions at all investigating the region if they were back to makin' bombs before Overwatch even fell.

And Jesse also sure as hell knew that they'd be eager to make Overwatch pay for thinning their ranks out, taking them out as surgically as Jesse knew Gabriel had. They'd also be real eager to make Gabriel Reyes himself pay for it. They had a revenge streak, Jesse'd know both from havin' been in it once, himself, but also from how he knew, going where he would be goin', he was gonna have the odds stacked against him from the start. Sure, it was fond to be remembered, but hell, he already had the damn cops to worry about.

Which just reaffirmed another point in his editorial on Hanamura- crime was running rampant, and the authorities sure as hell didn't seem to care who the actual bad guys were, nor did they seem ready to do anything about the situation.

The rest of the morning was simple, really. He did a quick batch of laundry, put away the sheets he borrowed for the night, and cleaned up the dishes he'd used in the morning.

Just 'cause he was squatting, didn't mean that he'd given up basic manners, cmon now. He still had a basic sense of human decency, after all.

The sense of morality that Gabriel Reyes had fostered in him after years of working n' following the man who was made of finer things than McCree ever had been, along with the deep love he'd felt for him, despite how they ended, it was ingrained in Jesse as the red was dyed in the wool o' his serape.

XXXXX

Breathing in the dry air of his home, there was definitely an air of comfort, but also a slight tension to it. He whistled as he hopped off his train ride home. Honestly, bless how the United States finally got its shit together after the Omnic Crisis and actually gave meaningful updates to its infrastructure- a la, the new high speed trains that were absolutely Jesse's only real way of getting around the American southwest with ease. They don't really give folks like him tickets, but lucky for him, Blackwatch had given him training in how to board-and more importantly, exit- trains moving over 600 kilometers per hour.

But if he were to share his secrets, well, that'd be criminal, given that it was Blackwatch activity and the Petras act banned all Overwatch activity, including training. He stretched some, eying the Deadlock symbol he'd had engraved on his arm, as a reminder of where he'd been, where he'd come from, and who he had to be grateful for.

He wasn't Deadlock, even if on the surface that's all the world saw him as.

He sighed as he looked out at the red rocks and sand out in the distance, and the open blue skies above him, and had to give a little grin, able to relax some. In all honesty, despite squatting at such a wonderfully furnished home, with that amazing bed that had given him a good night's rest, he'd been in Hanamura only two days ago, and was jet lagged to all hell. And there was nothin' to be done for that except to give it some time and several more nights rest out in the desert. Now see, when they plucked him outta the desert all those years ago, not quite 20 years earlier, folks like Ana and Jack, and hell, even Gabriel had done their best to blow the sand off around the edges and kick it out of his shoes, but it was as integral to him as the hat that Jack Morrison had despised for each and every year he'd known him. The desert was his home, in a sense that it was the physical place that he always had felt like he could return to.

It wasn't necessarily home in the way that his Pa's cabin had been, back in the days he'd spent growing up in the middle of fuck all nowhere. Nor was it home in the sense of people either. Those would be his Pa, who'd been dead for ages, god rest his soul...alternatively, it'd be the people he'd known back in the days he'd been in Blackwatch. Ana, Gabe, Angie, Genji n' all of Blackwatch, along with all the rest of em...hell, even Jack.

But that life was gone- much like his Pa, some were dead, n' those who weren't were scattered on all the continents of this earth, and he'd have no contact with them for most years. His first choice for contact, despite how she'd be madder than a wet hen the moment he got her on the phone and started talkin' to her, would be Angie. Unfortunately, she would be too conspicuous, and he was a wanted man. His real only hope for someone to work with would be another Blackwatch agent who was off the grid, but Genji was nowhere to be found, n' he had no ungodly idea where anyone else had gone.

On a slightly more morbid note, it was almost fitting that Gabe's will had stated he was to be cremated, and have his ashes scattered across the earth. And in a sense, he was- he'd been blown to high heaven, cremated in the fire of his own desire for revenge that had come outta nowhere, from Jesse's perspective. His metaphorical ashes- and Jesse knew, that ultimately Gabriel would consider them one and the same, seeing how the man had been a sucker for metaphor and literature- were spread by the presence of each and every living member of Blackwatch who stood for what Gabriel Reyes had stood for.

Jesse just hadn't thought that he'd carry out Gabe's wishes in his death before Gabe was 45 years old, before Jesse was even 35 years old.

But, well- that thought had taken a depressing note, and Jesse knew better than to stick with it 'cause he knew if he did he'd be a drunk mess before the end of the hour. N' unfortunately, he had to wait on the drunk piece 'cause he knew that he'd have to stay quick on his feet and in his wits- these folks wanted him dead, and it wasn't his time yet.

And that started with making sure that his appearance wasn't a dead giveaway.

One bleach n' dye job later, courtesy of a Sally's in the more upscale part of town, and a bright pink haired employee who'd been making goo goo eyes at Jesse- not that he could really blame the younger guy. Jesse McCree had become the ultimate bear, and he'd never even realized it until the poor young twink was stumbling over himself in an effort to impress him and get himself a sugar daddy.

It was almost funny, he mused as he dyed his hair in front of the mirror in his room inside the shittiest motel he could possibly find outside of Deadlock's turf.

"Once upon a time, I was that twink," He recalled to no one in particular, remembering how he'd been when he'd first started to see Gabriel Reyes in a warm, romantic light.

In the back of his head, he looked in the mirror and could see Gabriel sitting on the bed, a beer in his hand and a flirtatious expression on his face, smile inviting, eyebrow raised as he laughed off Jesse's comments about how he'd been back in the days he'd just joined Blackwatch.  _"You! You were only 17 years old! I didn't even think of that back then, Jesse. You were so damn quiet, until you had something to bitch about with that mile wide mean streak you had."_

True, when he'd first joined he'd been mean as shit, but as time had mellowed him out, courtesy of Ana's insistent work with him, he'd seen more and more appeal to what Jack and Gabe had had. His initial attraction to Gabriel was simple, physical, but what had eventually happened was that they'd become friends, they'd become best friends. They'd come to know each other in such an intimate way that ultimately, Gabe had been using him as an unofficial SIC, and when Jack and Gabe's long time romance had gone down the drain with stress of their positions and the way they'd changed from when it had started when they'd been young twenty somethings, to when they were in their late thirties.

And Jesse had changed too, obviously. It was still almost comical to think about how far he'd come. And to think, he'd lost weight since he'd been in Blackwatch. He couldn't even think about how that man would have reacted to him at his height. But again, in hindsight, he'd been enough of a bear to make the ol' bear of his dreams, Gabriel Reyes,  _willingly_  suck him off and love gettin' the shit dominated out of him.

But that was still a lifetime ago. Times had changed, Gabe was dead, and there was no point to Jesse dreaming of a dead man.

Sitting in the bath tub in the motel, he sighed again as he prepared to finish his disguise in the morning, once his scalp had calmed down after the dye job.

No, no time in dreaming of a dead man. Now, he just had to uphold his memory, in the best way he could.

Investigating Deadlock, in order to plan his take down of the damn gang that he'd once been apart of, this time with Gabriel Reyes dead n' Jesse on the other side of the equation, once and for all.

He just hoped it would help bring his own soul to rest.


	2. The Prodigal Son

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jesse McCree returns to Deadlock gorge to find out what restarted Deadlock and faces old ghosts from his early past, along with the usual ones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prolly going to update this...once a month, as im able. in december i have a christmas themed chapter 5, and then after that it should speed up considerably. it might only be 10 chapters instead of 15, but i think we're too early in this for me to have a solid idea.

Ain't much had changed about Deadlock Gorge in the 19 odd years following the bust- that was for damn sure. Cigar forgotten in the attempt to appear less like the usual suspect, McCree was already itchin' for some tobacco. However, he'd gone to a whole lotta trouble for this look, and so he'd have to keep his hat on and cigars in his pocket. Gabriel would be awful disappointed in him if he gave into his vices and got caught for em.

The nagging voice in his head, the one that was becomin' harder to ignore, sober and not smoking, reminded him that it was gonna be nigh impossible to disappoint Gabriel Reyes more than he already had.

 _Hypocrite_ , his head reminded him of his choices, while the memory of Gabriel Reyes slithered in his head and coiled like a snake and a noose around his neck, rattling dangerously with the words  _hypocrite,_ and _liar._

 _Traitor,_ Gabriel hissed in the empty hot air, and Jesse felt that familiar guilt settle in his gut, from where the snake coiled tight around his emotions and blamed him for having them, for being soft enough to choke with them. As he stared at himself in the mirror, he held his breath, because for a goddamned moment it felt like Gabriel Reyes could be right behind him.

 _Ingrate_. The snake whispered in his ear, and Jesse breathed out hard, closing his eyes and shaking his head.  He had to stay focused.

He was washing himself up in the old diner, since he'd jumped off the train like all o' em had done back in the day. He coulda sworn his knees protested the action less back then, but perhaps that was the change in the reason. The bathroom was as disgusting and dilapidated as he remembered it, but it made for a good place to make sure his look in the mirror was about right. Clean-shaven, red haired, and blue eyed. He whistled slightly as his fingers lightly ran across his face. He made a damn fine ginger, if he did say himself, but hell if he'd ever do this to his hair again.

He stretched, and donned a dusty blue motorcycle jacket, before putting peacekeeper away in her holster, and going out to order some of the god-awful coffee with his best naïve smile. He'd gotten good at it over the years. The best way to fit in unnoticed was to stand out more than anyone else.

"Good business today." He commented to the young thang workin' the counter, laying down a few dollars in payment, tip included.

The girl, Danny, from her nametag pinned up high on her chest nodded. "Yes, it's been real nice. Business here crashed, ever since they built the train over us…it's almost put us out of business." She gave a toothy grin. "But Deadlock's gonna change that- they're setting up camp here again."

Ah yes, Jesse remembered all that. About Gabriel's theoretical talk about the double-edged sword of progress, and the theoretical people that got left behind and alone in the dirt.

It'd been maybe 15 years ago when he and Gabe had argued about it- about winners, and losers, and economics. In honesty, Jesse hated economic theory, but back then he loved listening to how passionately Gabe had spoken about it- even if his opinion had infuriated him back when it had happened.

" _They're putting a train over Deadlock Gorge." He'd slammed the news article down on Gabe's desk, eyes hard. "It's gonna kill anything good in that damn place you worked so hard to clear the bad out of."_

_Gabriel looked up at him, slightly unimpressed with his attitude. "People are moving out of there, Jesse."_

" _A lot of folks can't though, boss." He pointed out. "I was one of them. For others, Route 66 is one of the only places they still feel a connection to, after the Crisis."_

" _There's always going to be winners and losers in these types of situations, McCree." He'd explained coolly, glancing over the news article. "There's a stop nearby, Route 66 is a popular tourist spot. But regardless of that- these trains are going to connect so much of the United States- so many of these more remote places were completely cut off from the rest of society following the crisis.  
_

" _Seems a bit unfair when the game's rigged in favor of those who can get where the going's expensive." He muttered. "If there's somethin' my Pa managed to beat over my head, its that tourism does shitty things to good places. If it does become a tourist hotspot, I know for fact at least half the folks there won't be able to buy jack shit, Bossman."_

" _It won't raise prices immediately, Jesse. And besides- even though people might lose out in some areas, they'll make up for it in other areas. Congress is apparently working on new legislation allowing increased world-wide trade sans tariffs, which means lower prices for everyone."_

_That made Jesse scoff. "But there aint gonna be any work for them to buy any of that stuff with."_

" _I'm sure they'll find something." Gabriel reassured, seeming a bit overconfident. "Humans are good for finding ways to survive against adversity. I've always considered that one of our finer qualities."_

" _Yanno, folks actually did find somethin', back when lots of folks 'round these parts had similar issues n' 1976." Jesse admitted, after taking a moment to contemplate his words and blasé attitude._

" _And what was that?" Gabriel asked, holding the newspaper back for him, eying Jesse carefully._

" _Deadlock." He'd replied matter-o-factly, and snatched it out of his hands, and turned tail on his heel, heading out, madder than a wet hen over the subject. Even though Jesse wouldn't ever feel right about going back there… that didn't mean he didn't care about the struggles they were goin' through. Not when he'd gone through them himself._

And Jesse'd been right, of course- unfortunate as that was to say.

Despite how he didn't necessarily have the same kinda a education as Gabriel had, he'd been smart, and was always one to tell him how it was. The young woman gave him his drink, and smiled brightly again, going to chat up some of the other customers while he sat on the red vinyl stool, the sound of people talkin' almost able to drown out the next train that ran overhead, but not quite.

He did his damndest to avoid making a face as he choked it down. The taste was exactly like how he remembered it being a cross between roadkill's fried intestines simmered down to a liquid with a burnt pot- though that gave the chef too much credit- and boiled dirt.

Yep. Some things never did change.

XXXXX

After he had stolen someone else's rather nice and fancy looking bike, he was on the old road, and looking around at how little Deadlock had changed. Something in his gut felt…sad, disappointed. Like he'd failed this pocket of the world. Blackwatch had took this down when it took him in, and yet…Jesse McCree was outta work, n' Deadlock was prospering again.

 _An exercise in futility_ , Ana had called it as she had gone to Cairo to help with the growing humanitarian crisis that had began in Egypt 7 years ago, her expression stricken.  _We got so far, and yet…it's so easily swept away_.

He sighed at the memory, attempting to shake it off like it was a cobweb, n' not somethin' that had become stuck in his moral fabric.

After all- even though Ana had called it an exercise in futility, she still thought it was worth doing.

Which meant that McCree had to figure out who in the Hell was supplying Deadlock with funds when they were supposed to be doin' jack with shit. And that was what he was doing.

He parked the bike, and sighed as he stretched a bit. This would be over quick; he'd be in and out before anyone ever noticed him.

"Knock on wood," He muttered to himself, walking through the emptied out bar, seeing as the patrons along with its tender had gone out to see the show. Nah, he knew the back way in, and seeing the deadlock symbol inside just…confirmed things. So this was where they were doin' it.

The ol' HQ was a bit ramshackle now, a bit…dirty and rusted over, but there were signs of use. Strange how 20 years ago, he'd been workin', gettin' paid, havin' sex, doin' all sortsa to make his Pa roll in his grave, all in this one place located smack in the middle of hell's cracked-dry armpit.

It was also the place he'd met Gabriel.

In the office, there were files, papers, and McCree picked up a few of them, stuffing them away in his shirt. He didn't have a bunch of time to just peruse the papertrail. Gone were the days of havin' days just to collect info. No, these days it was done hot n' fast and dirty, prolly with a bit of bloodshed, despite Jesse's best damn efforts to keep that to a minimum.

Jesse looked up, and spotted the camera, and sighed.

Best be quicker, then.

A quick look at the break room, where the billiards table was, where he'd gotten pushed up against the thing and handcuffed, where Gabriel had prepositioned him in the first place.

_Pissed off like a shaken hornet, he'd been, spittin' out blood and glarin' at the older man who seemed caught in an indecisive combination of shock and exhilaration._

" _What's your name, punk?" He'd asked, breathless, his team still taking their damn time to round up anyone else straggling in the back._

" _Jesse McCree." He'd ground out, n' though he'd hated it at first, all covered in blood and sweat and the red sand of the rocks n' desert, it had been the best damn thing to ever happen to him._

" _Well, you're one of only two damn people in the world who could prolly do that, and I've never seen the other manage." He'd explained. "Combine that with- hey, what's in the back room here?" He'd asked, seeming to have gotten ahead of himself._

" _That's the enrichment facilities," he explained in a slow voice. "That's where we make the big bombs," He mocked, and the man rolled his eyes._

" _Knock it off, ingrate, I'm doing you a damn favor."_

_His deep brown eyes gleamed. "Reflexes like that, gun skills like that, and a knowledge of what you lot are doing down here….oh yes, I can work with that."_

" _If I might, what the_ hell  _are you talking about," he asked, voice saccharine sweet and belying his frustration with his confusion._

" _Kid, as I see it, you have two options." He sat on the billiards table, looking at Jesse with a sense of somethin' that was almost…camadarie? "First, given that you lot are dealing nukes and other weapons of mass destruction, you're looking at maximum security prison, and at least one life sentence, prolly more." He drawled some, not in the heavy way like Jesse would, or how a few of the other Southerners would, thick like humidity that didn't exist out in these parts. Naw- his wasn't sweet at all. Californian, then. "Or, you come work for me. And we both see what you can be with some…. polishing," he explained._

" _That's not a fuckin' choice if I have half a fuckin' brain." Jesse pointed it out, unimpressed, and feelin' not unlike the cornered animal with a gun pointed between the eyes._

" _Then you know which option to take." Gabriel had said, and god smite him down if Jesse hadn't wished he had his hands free to just knock that damn smirk off his face._

_Opción dos, then._

And here he was now.

He pushed open the door, to where the old enrichment facilities were, and whistled as he saw the whole thing stripped down. Reyes had been busy, back durin' that operation. Not that McCree knew, given that once he'd been whisked out of the desert, he'd not seen it in 20 years.

But damn if nothin' else had been done to it in 20 years.

He whistled some, hands on his hips as he rubbed at his forehead, contemplating this. So they weren't manufacturing them anymore. Interesting- but, they had to come from somewhere, n' Jesse was sure there was a money trail. These things cost money to get, when they weren't makin' them on site- and they were usually from government facilities.

He left the room, and headed back to the office, the unnatural quiet of the place beginning to bother him. Somethin' didn't feel quite right about being here- even more so than before.

He was bein' watched, and he didn't like that, not one bit.

But dammit if he wasn't gonna get what he came for. If Deadlock didn't give Talon the bomb that took down Zurich, he imagined whoever supplied it did.

He didn't even waste time by bein' neat, tearing open the file cabinets, and looking for somethin' nice and simple.

He found it, and grinned. A map of the train that ran above Deadlock gorge- cause that was the only real way people got in and out of this damn place anymore. And gladly for him, there was some nice bright red sharpie around Grand Junction, Colorado.

He went back to the cabinets, and tore open the ones that ran from A-C, and specifically at the ones relating to Colorado.

Jesse had figured, but it was always good to be sure when it came to these kindsa things.

The furthest he got was a torn-apart check for an unknown amount of money, with the name Vialli on it, before he felt a sharp blow with a heavy dark  _somethin_ ' to the temple, and saw the filing cabinet comin' fast towards his face before his world went dark.

XXXXX

When his vision cleared, sorry as it was to say, Jesse McCree found himself in a familiar position- down on his side with people's feet on top of him, holding him down, and a man's foot in his face.

A quick analysis, courtesy of his swimming head: he'd been caught by someone from the original group, and he'd hit hit the filing cabinet on the way down, which hurt, and he felt a lil woozy, and he sure as hell couldn't feel peacekeeper weighted against his leg in her holster.

Figures.

"Well now boys, looks like the prodigal son returns." The man stomped his foot down onto McCree's hat, and McCree looked up at him with cool, collected eyes, despite the blood that was trickling down into them, to see a one Andy Robertson- a familiar face, even if he'd aged a damn sight better than McCree had.

His panic abated now that the crisis was averted, and Jesse took in a breath to catch it. Oh, now this, he could handle.

Sure, he was caught and quite literally underfoot of a few unknown gooks whose faces he couldn't see, but he's learned a thing or two since leaving this godforsaken gorge, in particular about a  _few_  of his ex-coworkers.

"I seem to recall that bible story havin' a slightly different meaning." He taunted, eyes hard as he stared them down from his place on the floor. "But we all know you aint ever were the type to really pay attention in church."

"You ran off, joined the damn feds." Andy mocked back, not rising to his bait.

"Never once ran with the feds." Jesse spat up blood from the floor. "Was with Blackwatch."

"So worse than the feds. You were runnin' with the sons of bitches who took us down to begin with!" He got another kick in the gut, and the other two fuckers laughed some as McCree gasped in pain.

"It was that or prison." He explained after taking a moment to clear his throat. "I'm sure you know all about that makin' that particular choice, dontcha Andy." His brown eyes locked with Andrew as he drew out the word particular, and Andy, and Jesse fought back a smirk as the pleased look on his ex-coworker's face fell, and his skin paled slightly. They stared at each other for a long moment, and McCree kept his cool as blood ran down his temple, and his chin. This wasn't his first rodeo.

" _See McCree, there are two games that we're interested in when I talk Game Theory- the Prisoner's Dilemma and Chicken. Chicken's the simpler one, so I'll explain it first. In a game of chicken, two cars are speeding toward each other and the goal is to not be the first one to pull out. If neither pull out, then they'll both die in the crash, but to be the first one to pull out, well, it's a matter of honor. You pull out first, and you're the chicken."_ Gabriel's voice explained in the back of his mind.  _"It applies to political and interpersonal relations too."_

The other two younger men looked at Andy carefully, and Andy's jaw locked, as his Adam's apple bobbed, before he sent them out of the ransacked office with a gesture. They looked a bit confused, but McCree had to bite back his smug remark.

"You ain't got nothin' on me." Andrew cut into him, hazel eyes squinted, grip on his gun slackening some. It let McCree more comfortably sit up, knowing he had already won the first round.

"I'm sure some of the folks here wonder how you got outta the gorge just before the raids came." Jesse reminded. "Wonder what they'll say if I told them we had a rat all along."

"I was 19!" He argued hotly, "I wasn't about to spend the rest of my damn life in prison, they had us, McCree, we were had. And anyways, I'm back now. Helpin' run this whole damn operation."

"N' I was 17. And that apparently, by your pristine standards, was no damn excuse for me," Jesse pointed out, his smugness starting to leak into his tone. "And I wasn't a rat."

"I could kill you." Andy said, his body tense as he focused his gun around McCree's head again. "I should- I'd be rewarded for it."

There's where's McCree smiled. Andy was desperate. And though he'd run with Deadlock, Jesse knew that deep in his heart, Andrew Robertson wasn't one for killin' folks. Nah. He'd never liked it, never had been able to stomach it- was why he'd squealed to the Feds, why he'd asked that none of his coworkers get killed in the raid.

" _With the Prisoner's Dilemma, there are two prisoners- who separately have interrogations, and therefore, two outcomes for each one, four outcomes in total. They can choose to cooperate; not say anything to the cops end with…well, lets say one year in jail. Or they could defect- if the other one cooperated, they'll have no prison time, but the other will have 20 years. And if they both defect, well, they'll both have 10 years in jail."_  Gabriel's voice continued calmly inside his head. _"Neither side has a reason to cooperate with the other because they can't know what the other will choose- 10 years is better than 20 years, and getting off Scott-free is even better than 10. Even though the option where they both cooperate is better than any of the others for the both of them, they still both choose to go against the other because neither of them wants to be stuck in jail for 20 years, therefore the game ends with both of them in jail for 10 years, because they both defected."_

"Butcha won't." McCree drawled lazily. "N' what would you get outta it anyway. Sure, I'd be dead, but you already admitted to the crime yourself." His head jerked to the camera up in the corner of the room. "And I'm sure that gunshot will draw a lotta attention to this spot real quick, now won't it. Surely quick enough you won't be able to delete that particular footage- and I'm sure everyone round here will wanna see Andy "shotmisser" Robertson kill me for themselves." He finished, and smirked, knowing he'd won.

" _That is, unless there's more than one round of the game. When there's continued repercussions for actions, rather than a single choice, we tend to see more cooperation, than defection. And when one side cooperates one round, the other will as well. If one defects the first round, the other will defect the second round. This is known as tit-for-tat. If there's repercussions for defecting, then people are more likely to cooperate to begin with."_ Gabriel wrapped up, and Andy lowered his weapon, defeated in this particular battle of wits.

Tit for tat.

XXXXX

Getting out was, indeed, the tricky bit, but Andy showed him the new way through the side with the newly installed magnetic "floating" platforms, and the two of them escaped above the younger members heads, rather than under their noses.

If McCree had stuffed a few of Deadlock's files beneath his shirt, well, that wasn't any of Andy's business anymore, considering the two of them were leaving together, and then partin' ways, again.

Andy itched to get out, and once the had departed, he almost looked like he'd wanted to say something, but…in the end, turned tail and slunk back to the diner- prolly intending on taking the next train out of New Mexico. McCree went the other way, towards some of the back caves where the harder escape was.

Jesse knew what Andy had prolly wanted to say. Good to see you alive, doin' something with yourself. Back when they were just kids, Andy and him had been partners. Andy had known Jesse was smarter, better and more cunning than him, and he'd been two years younger. They'd both been orphaned by the crisis, when Jesse was 11, and Andy was 13. Both came from outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico, even.

He knew that was what Andy had wanted to say, because in truth, Jesse'd meant to say it too.

Andy hadn't been right in the head, back when they'd worked together. He'd been soft, hadn't really ever been cut out for Deadlock's work. His daddy had been an EMT, and his mama had worked in local government. His mama, Esperanza- who'd come over with Tamales and let Jesse's Pa Luis borrow a cup of sugar on more than one occasion- had been killed in a hostage situation, and his daddy died in a cloud of gore when he'd gone in at the start of the war. While Luis' death had hardened McCree, their deaths had made Andy anxious and shaky with a gun. But since they'd known each other for so long, they'd gone to Deadlock and done their part in killin' bots- Andy, makin' bombs with the uranium they'd stolen and enriched together, and Jesse with a six-shooter. Andy had done better with authority, where Jesse would stick it to the man.

" _I am your boss!"_

" _And what's that gotta do with respect, Reyes? All I see is a man fulla himself." Jesse jeered back, body sore and hurt and bleeding from too many rounds. He didn't wanna keep doing this. He didn't even have his heart in this sterile fighting room out in fuckin' Switzerland._

" _I was Strike Commander!  I fought in the Crisis, led humanity to victory!"  He'd argued, and Jesse shrugged._

 _"We all fought in the damn war, myself included.  Who knows what really stopped them?  You're not special."_ _He'd cut into Reyes with brutal words, 17 and full of hot air and anger at being dragged so far from home, away from his whole damn life._

They had been all that was left of everything the other had ever known. It had once made McCree downright furious to know that he'd been betrayed by someone he'd protected for all those years, but… at the same time, fury had been tempered by the years apart, and it cooled into somethin' to realize that Andy had been scared the whole damn time. Sure, he'd come back, but…again, Jesse prolly woulda if he'd not gotten caught, not gotten sucked up into Gabe's deal, into Blackwatch.

Money to be made, a job to be done, a life to be lived out in the desert, just like their folks had before them.

And as Jesse walked away in the darkness of the now-unlit cave, he wondered if his betrayal of Gabriel by walkin' away had been tit-for-tat acting so many years after the fact.  But it had also been hypocritical.  He'd been so hurt, so angry that Andy had left him, run before Deadlock's end at the hands of Overwatch, had helped ushered it forward.  But he understood it now, why Andy couldn't.  He did, completely.  

A way to not see the look on the face of the one you're closest to, as you know the end is coming for them, when you leave them to their fate.

He fumbled his way around until he found the old gas lantern, lighting it up with his cigar lighter, and sighed as he set it back down, looking to where he'd left his belongings before he'd gone in. He set down the stolen files, and rubbed his face.

It'd been good to see him. He looked even better than McCree himself did. He shoulda brought him with him. Andy woulda been invaluable help in tracking down whoever this Vialli person was. Too late now, he supposed as he got out of his get-up, and sighed again, taking a long sip of his bourbon from his flask.

Looks like Andy would be just another ghost in Jesse's past, then. Another missed opportunity. He thought of Genji running, of Angela staying, and her angelic face covered in tears, and the likely dead comm in his pockets as she _excused_ him for running, bless her. And worst of all, he thought of Gabriel, of the weight that the choice still left on his soul.  Of the snake that tightened as he felt the sob catch on it in his throat. 

Gabe begged it of him after the explosion, when he was put into the hospital.  Jesse couldn't remember that, not until recently.  It had gotten between them, he thought now.  " _I need you_!" He'd cried, expression panicked.  " _Don't leave me Jesse_."

But he had, in the end.  He'd torn away in the night, after Gabriel's internal agreement to the conspiracy that brought down Overwatch.

He sat there, the sob caught in his throat, but utterly miserable as the memory of their final fight, of Gabriel contradicting himself when they'd been at his sister's beach house and Gabriel had told him that Jesse was everything to Gabe.  He stayed there for god-knows how long, before he spotted somethin' changed about the old cave when he lit himself a cigar, pulling the light closer to him. He picked up the lantern to get a closer look at the strange flash of darker red on the cave floor.

It was a tattered old piece of red fabric that was once a bandana, with a bloodstain on it. He didn't need a blood test to recognize it- it had been his, a lifetime ago. Back in the early days of Blackwatch, before he'd worn the rather dashing black cape that fed into his ego centered on being a hand of justice in a broken world, he'd worn a red bandana.  It wouldn't be interesting, had he not lost it years ago, though it had been so long ago he couldn't even remember where or on what mission. Around his mid twenties, certainly, but…he'd not been here in almost 20 years. The fabric had dust, and bugs on it. It'd been here for a while. And someone had placed it here.  But who?  When did it get here?

Somethin' thick was caught in his throat as he placed when he'd lost it.

The last time Jesse'd seen it was when he'd tied it tight around Gabe's arm and told him that he wasn't gonna die there, not then, and they'd waited for medical evac in Angola, Gabe gravely injured.  The last time he'd seen it was around Gabriel Reyes' arm, and never again.  Not until now. 

 _Tit for tat, ingrate,_ the snake rattled dangerously from where it was coiled around his throat.


	3. Valley of the Shadow of Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jesse McCree ponders on the first set of clues from beyond the grave, and runs into other old ghosts on his way there.

Jesse McCree woke up with his face down in fucking red hot sand, the sun beating down on his backside, and his head pounding from what had been a series of poor choices made no where else, but in Las Vegas. His mouth tasted like ass, so he knew that he had a few options- he'd had to have really gone and ridden someone else's wild side, mixed his alcohols with each other in ways that rightly had no business bein' together, or had gotten a lil something extra dusted into his mix. And none of those options felt more right than the others, which left him with Gabriel's voice tellin' him to Occam's Razor it.

Hard as it was to imagine, he mighta just out-drunk his alcoholic asses' tolerance.

"Is it out drank or out drunk," He muttered as he pulled himself upright, shoving his hat further down his face to shield himself from the fucking annoyance that was the sun. "Ah, who fuckin' gives a shit? I sure as hell don't." He muttered to no one in particular.

There was a motorcycle, completely outta gas, and when his hand went to his flask, it had also been completely emptied. Didn't even have fuckin' water in him. Damn his blackout drunk self lack of foresight. Not that not-blackout-drunk Jesse had much of that in the first place. It was still nice to just be able to complain.

After a moment of sitting there, mind blank as he stared out into the distance, looking westwards towards the vast expanse of a whole lot of nothing, eyes and head begging him for a bit more rest, he got up, shaking his head to clear it.

For some unknown goddamned reason, on  _another_  one of his fender-benders, (cause one just wasn't  _ever_  enough, he sarcastically thought, suddenly craving some damn Lays potato chips) courtesy of his absolutely wonderful mental health status, he had decided to bike out into the middle of fucking Death Valley until he ran out of fucking gas. And then he'd passed out in the sand. Of all the mundane ways Jesse McCree had envisioned drunk him try to take himself out in a blaze of fucking glory, death by exposure in  _a_ fucking desert, not even  _the_  one he'd grown up in, hadn't been one of them.

And he knew exactly what had fucking done it to him, too. The reappearance of the bandana had triggered it. It'd raised up the ugly head o' depression, and let it run round backstage of his mind like a chicken with its head cut off holding a sledgehammer that had just so happened to be on fire.

And  _then,_ and only  _then,_  he'd gone into Vegas and gotten hammered; both in the metaphorical, typical drinking sense, and metaphysically- by one mean ass motherfucking chicken.

Gabriel's voice in the back of his mind had a few things to say about  _that_  particular use of time and his dwindling funds.

" _Jesse, you're smart. No one here could rightly deny you that."_ Gabriel said over a beer,in some sad echo ofsomething they once had, that had led to some sloppy make outs because Gabriel was still upset about Jack Morrison and Jesse had been willing to drink to fucking yourself over. " _You can literally headshot 6 people from halfway across the damn world it feels like- accounting for wind, future movement, others intervening and fighting them. No. You're not even just street smart- you're fucking genius."_

There'd been a pregnant pause, as Jesse and Gabe stared at each other back then, and now as Jesse cracked his back. Sleeping ass-up wasn't ever fun, and it meant he had too much fucking sand up his nose.

" _Now, if that translates into making smart decisions for yourself… That's a different fucking question alto-fucking-gether."_

Naw, Jesse couldn't fool himself there and say Gabe was wrong about that particular character flaw.

He took out the bandana from where he'd stuffed it into his pocket, and ran his fingers over it, where the stain left by dried blood had made it stiff and brown. He knew where he lost this, down to a T. And it felt important to remember it. It had definitely been placed there intentionally. When, or why, or by who…all missing information.

But the person he'd last seen it with enjoyed that sort of literary device nonsense, and had saddled Jesse with that same sorta knowledge. It felt like a sign. A sign of what… perhaps was something he could figure out.

Angola- a mission gone wrong, one of the first ones where Jesse was startin' to act something a bit more like a SIC for Gabe, and Camadarie and thoughts that the man was kinda hot turned into something that was flavored somethin' sweeter.

He'd bandaged Gabe's wounded arm up himself, using the bandana as the bandage- and told him to stay down, that help was on the way. And he'd not seen it since…why, was something he recalled too.

" _Jesse, the docs took it from me, it's still in medical somewhere- I'll get it back for you." Gabriel sat down next to him with an apologetic smile. "Might take some time, though."_

" _Don't worry 'bout it Gabe, was about time I started wearing team colors anyway," Jesse explained with a blasé shrug._

" _Will you two be quiet? I want to see the movie." Fareeha had shoved at Jesse; using her other arm to swat Gabe- shoving him was a futile thing after all._

" _Ugh, now you're both poisoning the youth with your bad taste." Jack had said, shaking his head in disapproval._

" _I'm 15! And it's good!" She had resisted the accusation, and Gabriel shrugged at jack with an affectionate smile._

" _Or so bad it's good. C'mon Jack. The 2004 version of Van Helsing is a classic."_

_He looked at the movie, and then at Jesse, and the two of them shouted in melodramatic unison with the monster on screen. "Though I may walk in the valley of the shadow of Death- I shall fear no evil!"_

_Jesse cackled with him. "And we aint gonna fear nay-Sayers either. Now git, this is Gabe and I's thing."_

_Jack had raised an eyebrow at that, giving Gabe a meaningful look, which he shrugged at. "Sorry hun. I did schedule this with them."_

_Jack had turned with an eyeroll, and Fareeha had muttered that though Jack seemed so against the film, he sure was acting the part of the melodramatic bitch bride._

Yeah, this all seemed like a very Gabe thing to do. Drunk him wasn't completely dumb either. It'd prolly hit him and he'd driven out into the literal valley of Death. But the quote focuses on how it was the shadow- not Death Valley.

And Death Valley was in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains- a place with many of the storage facilities of nukes in the continental US, and, interestingly…an old Watchpoint. Watchpoint: Grand Mesa, where Fareeha was currently stationed by her employers. Fareeha, too, walked in the shadow of Death- Ana's death.

Jesse didn't know how, didn't know when, didn't even know if Gabriel had really done this. But it just  _felt_ like something he would've. And lord god above knew that if Jesse was gonna be runnin' round, making a fool out of himself, he could at least spare a moment and chase the white rabbit that enticed with promises of knowing more about what the fuck happened to Gabriel.

He turned his eyes toward the rising sun; head and hat tilted downwards, and started to walk. He had some ground to travel- and to pull himself out from this ditch he'd fallen into.

With a heaving breath, and already feeling like he needed a helluva lot more water than he had on him, he looked up, to where the sunrise was coming over the Rocky Mountains.

The base where Jesse had spent much of his twenties lay to the northeast of here.

And in the distance, a figure robed in black stood out in the mirage of the world, as Gabriel's voice whispered in his ear.

" _You ready to tango, gunslinger?"_ The echo of Gabriel's bemused voice from a D&D campaign a lifetime ago rang in his ears as the figure turned, and vanished, as though he hadn't ever been there in the first place.

Slightly piqued interest turned into desperate, clawing curiosity, as the quote from Gabe and his favorite Stephan King novel ran through his mind.

"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." He murmured reverantly. Sure, this was more than likely just a desperate concoction by a hung-over alcoholic desperate to avoid thinkin' on all the mistakes he'd made in his life…but…

Hoping for somethin' was better than cursin' at nothin.

And the gunslinger followed.

XXXXX

AUGUST, 2075

Colorado was too damn hot, this time of year. But, it was unfortunately where Jesse McCree had ended up when he was trying to figure out what, exactly, he was being led there for.

At least he was, until something that was far bigger than him raised its ugly head.

"FADING GLORY: ON THE TRAIL OF JACK MORRISON," Read the title of the latest sensationalist article by Miss Shaw.

(Though he really honestly wasn't ever able to say that. Much as it has always pained him to ever admit it, even to himself, Jack "Ketchup is my favorite spice" Morrison was hot. Maybe not a 10 in Jesse's book, but at least like, a 8. Maybe even a 9, now that he'd gone grey. It also pained him to say he liked older men. They looked distinguished, ok.)

But, no. He wasn't going to go further down that fucked up rabbit hole, and he drank some of his whiskey to shake away even thinking the sacrilegious idea that Jack Morrison was hot.

He dated Gabe, after all. What more could he want?

He didn't even really know why his feet took him down to the Boulder Valley area- but he figured, even though Jack had appeared on the other side of the mountains, he'd wanna put distance between himself and the base that, unfortunately, Jesse'd been too afraid to call Fareeha and go into.

And Jesse didn't know exactly why primarily because he and Morrison had never seen eye to eye. Not before Jesse dated Gabe, not after since he got that stink eye a helluva lot more after the fact. And then there was the complication that Morrison was running from the damn world. Especially now that Shaw's exposé put him at risk of every Overwatch ally and enemy coming out of the woodwork to track him down now. And hell if Jack would really consider him one of those or the other, since Jack and him aint never got along better than oil and water.

He knew why it was, unconsciously at least.

The only other one known to have gone down in that explosion…it'd been Jack.

The only one that would be able to verify his…conspiracy theory, crazed refusal of somethin' he'd viewed as an objective truth since the day it'd happened. The truth that they were both dead- since who the fuck had a thing where they'd lie about the two greatest men in this half the 21st century being dead?

Jack Morrison just being up and kicking, in itself, was already some pretty strong evidence to the contrary- but he had to ask…Jack being alive wasn't necessarily surprising. Gabe himself had often commented the man was like a weed, always able to grow in new, creative places and ways.

And stick up his ass, letter to the law Morrison becoming a vigilante? That was definitely some new and creative ways. And hell if Jesse was gonna pass up a chance to see that. He'd pay to fucking see that, really. Part of…the whole last mess with Blackwatch had come from the fact he'd been willing to turn Jesse over to the court to put in jail the rest of his natural life for quote on quote "vigilantism" now that it'd been publicized why he'd been on trial, after a series of actually…somewhat redeeming TV specials on the fall of Overwatch.

Naw, he knew the original reason for his guilty verdict was somethin' that had never seen the light of day. It was all done behind closed doors and deep black curtains in front of a one-way mirror. N' there wasn't no way to see inside, even as they watched you squirm and suffocate in the curtains tightening around you like oppressive dark waters of the storming ocean.

Issue was. Jack Morrison was a helluva hard man to find.

Thankfully- his quarry decided to come to him, first.

Jesse had been up drinking in some slightly shadey bar in the middle of the night. Nothing out of the usual there, when someone in a cheesy fucking all-American motorcycle getup sat at his table, wearing a military-grade tactical visor and carrying a certain gun that had appeared in the news.

He looked up, and a red gaze stared down at him. A hoarse voice grumbled, "I looked at this place, and I thought to myself… this looks like a place where Jesse McCree would drink and be sad. And here you are."

McCree sipped his bourbon quietly. "You're a hard man to find." He pointed out dryly.

"That's the goal." He shrugged, putting the gun down beneath the booth. "I think I'll join you," He admitted.

"Gotta love open carry laws," McCree commented absently, and Jack removed his mask, grabbing the bottle and taking a deep swig of McCree's bourbon- much to Jesse's distaste. "Yanno, you could have at least asked for a second glass, Jack."

"I've taken a few notes from you." He said, giving him an even look across the table, relaxing into the worn down vinyl booth. "Including asking for forgiveness, not permission."

Jesse let out a disgusted grunt, raising an eyebrow. "Really now? Seems like more than that." He asked, looking from the bourbon bottle to Jack again. His blue eyes were hard, as he sat in the seat, looking at Jesse carefully.

"Yes." He agreed rather simply. "You weren't at Zurich." He pointed out, leaning back against the vinyl with an awkward creak of the well worn down leather against the cheaper fabric.

"And you were," Jesse drawled back, pouring Jack a glass. "But now we're both here. Got some questions for you."

"And I have my own. Why weren't you at Zurich?" Jack asked, insistently, holding his glass close to his chest, leaning in some.

Jesse rolled his drink around, looking at the amber fluid carefully. "I wasn't about to let Reyes get me killed, or really…if I remember right, let him kill me." He answered simply. "He was talking nonsense- Blackwatch was planning a rebellion. I don't remember much of what they actually said, 'cause of the pain pills or the drinking, or maybe some of both. I remember clearly though, that Gabriel Reyes mocked my suggestion for just packing shit and leaving, or I think he thought I was gonna ask him to." He sipped his drink, brow somewhat furrowed. "He, well…he turned on me. I told him his plan was crazy talk. Was destroying everything he had ever built. And he called me a traitor, and an ingrate. And so I kicked him out of my room, and ran away in the middle of the night, after sleeping some of whatever funk had come over me."

Jacks eyes were glued on him the entire time, leather gloves wrapped tightly around his glass of bourbon. And then he downed the whole glass.

"You didn't think to tell me?" He said, when he came out the other side of drowning.

"Fuck, Jack, I woulda reckoned you would have refused to see me." He pointed out blandly, shaking his head. "Not to mention Gabe was already calling me a traitorous ingrate. And I wasn't eager to take a side in the fight. The only ones I woulda told on your side were Ana, Angela, or Reinhardt, one was dead, the other working in the hospital a few miles away, and the last one being benched and living out in Germany."

His face belied his frustration with that explanation, but he simply poured a second glass instead of critiquing McCree for it. Good- he could be taught. This time, he was a lot slower.

Silence reigned for a moment, before Jesse realized- it was his turn to ask his question.

"…Speaking of Zurich," He began, slowly, cordially.

"He's dead, Jesse." Jack cut in coldly, making eye contact with him, his blue gaze like ice. "I saw it happen."

He was quiet, but…it still hurt to hear him confirm the truth... even if Jesse didn't quite believe that again.

"I've found some things." He admitted, rather quietly. "Perhaps you'll look into them."

He put his file on the table, and pushed it towards Jack, who looked at it owlishly.

"Deadlock." He pointed out the obvious, with the big ass fucking logo on the manila folder, and Jesse only nodded, while a gloved hand moved from its clutched position on the glass to open it up.

He carefully thumbed through a few things, vaguely interested. "Seems they're dealing with Talon." Jack muttered, tapping to a few things. "I recognize that shell company name. It has an offshore bank account- near Italy."

Jesse nodded, smirking now that Jack was perusing his hard earned work- and Jack was having a decent time of it, seeming relatively relaxed, until he looked up to pour himself another glass, and scowled at Jesse.

"God. Get that fucking smirk off that face."

"What smirk?" Jesse balked, while Jack simply took another long sip of bourbon.

Jack glowered. "That smirk. The one that says, see, my work is useful, you need me," He explained, even though it didn't explain much at all.

"Sounds like you're just projecting." Jesse called him out, crossing his arms in displeasure, his head buzzing with alcohol.

There was a beat, as the two of them stared at each other, and Jack shoved the manila folder aside at the same point that Jesse shoved the empty bottle to the side, the two of them meeting in the middle.

"I'll fuck that fucking smirk right off your damn face," Jack growled in between harsh, aggressive kisses, his chapped lips rough against Jesse's own.

"I'd like to see you try, goody two shoes Morrison," He fired back, as they got off the table in a tangle of limbs and clothes, Jesse grabbing his folder and shoving it into his bag as Jack took his mask and did the same, the two of them going to the bathroom after Jack slammed down a Jefferson onto the fucked up wooden table.

"You'll find I'm not such a goody two shoes anymore." He rasped, glaring as they undressed in a rush of dirty clothes and sweat in bathroom, Jack using his pulse rifle to hold the door shut. "Now shut up and fuck me." He demanded, and Jesse grabbed him by the collar of his shirt.

"Quit your demanding, Morrison. I wanna hear you beg." Jesse said, getting a smirk from Jack, the two of them locked in a battle of unconscious wills, both half dressed in a trashy bar's bathroom, and Jack shut off the lights, so that they both could create a lie.

As Jesse roughly prepared Jack, to Jack's moaning pleasure in affirmation of his roughness, he thought absently of the things that Gabriel had loved about Jack here before him. Thought about what parts of Gabriel were left here, in Jack. His harsh edges, the way he demanded instead of begged, and the way he bended and begged.

His warmth was just like Gabe's had been. He was so warm. Gabe'd explained it as having been a super soldier- his metabolism was so fast, his entire body moved faster. Meant he got drunk faster, he had admitted over a glass of beer.

In the dark, it was easy to ignore the physical differences, and feel the muscles and scars and callouses that lay beneath the surface of Jack Morrison, the things that were made of the convergent evolution of Jack Morrison and Gabriel Reyes.

And Jesse was damn sure that Jack was using him for exactly the same reason. Imagining that someone that was long gone was still there, with him, and was able to fill some broken part of his soul. Feeling the impact of the man in both of them, making a complete picture of the one of them that was missing, the man that they had both loved, for insanely long times. Who had burned them both, and left them with smoke, ashes, and pain and confusion.

They were both just trying to fit the puzzle piece of the other into the hole that was…Gabriel Reyes.

And god, it dulled the pain, just to share it with someone else who had loved him just as much. Even if it only helped for the time being, with Jack Morrison cumming against Jesse McCree's stomach with a desperate shout without words.

They didn't need to share any. They both knew.

They parted ways that night, their relationship none the better, but also none the worse. Which was prolly to say the least, a different way of knowing Jack Morrison than Jesse had before.

They'd both changed. Some for the better, and some for the worse.

XXXXX

OCTOBER, 2075

With that particular mistake tucked firmly under his belt, and the messy connection between them broken after giving Jack some of those files, he found himself heading southward- but back over to the West.

It was getting colder, and he didn't have the funds to keep running around. It was time to settle down, and work to get some of that money back up. He'd wasted plenty in Vegas, and hadn't done any bounty work to make some.

So he returned to the place that he'd made his home again.

Santa Fe, New Mexico. His father's home, and his current base of operations.

Opening the door, he found all sorts of mail- plenty of people were seeking his skills, but he only would answer a few of these bounties. Of course, returning home was always a risk, but he and the rez had a sort of mutual understanding.

See, Jesse's ma had been a Navajo woman. Had her card and everything. But Jesse didn't have the blood quantum required. It meant, that when things went to shit and his Pa had died, Jesse'd been thrown to the wolves.

Which was something Jesse had said to his Uncle in the council. The man wasn't really his uncle, but rather, his ma's family's friend. Jesse McCree was mixed, but hadn't been native enough to be saved the pain he'd been through, being thrown to deadlock. And true, they could throw him to the wolves and turn him in, or they could use his presence as an unofficial security service.

As he sat down in his chair, it was clear to remember what choice they'd made.

He sighed, putting out Halloween candy that he'd grabbed from the general store in a cauldron he put on his front porch, with a warning to only take what was fair, sitting and throwing a match into his fireplace as the temperature got a bit nippy out in the night of the reservation.

The house next to Luis' had been repossessed and sold- the home of his childhood friend- but not this one, not Jesse's, mostly because the first thing Jesse did with his nice big checks from Blackwatch was make sure that it'd always be there for him. And it had stayed the same for a long time, the only stalwart of what he'd had out in the ever-changing, ever-evolving desert.

He sighed as he stared outwards, and reminisced on better times.

He opened up his old comm, and turned it on, charging it in the meanwhile, feeling a bit… nostalgic.

Prolly because he'd run into Jack and had sex with him- and the thought was still sort of vaguely haunting, but also because Halloween had been a time every year to just…group up and hang out. They told scary stories, got dressed up, all drank (except Ana, when Ramadan overlapped), and just generally had a damn good time. Some of the happiest memories they had were in Reinhardt's fancy schmancy living room, turned into party room and D&D headquarters.

He sent out a single text message, "Happy Halloween Ange," and then he turned it right back off, grabbing his bourbon, and sinking into the couch, closing his eyes and wishing, not for the first time, that he wasn't just alone with his thoughts and the ghosts of his past that haunted him, even now, threatening to choke him with the noose he made himself, or drown him in his own grief.

He'd keep moving along. He was sure of it.  He'd go back to the Rockies, back to where they cast their shadow, and figure out what Gabe's clue meant.  Even if he wasn't alive, it...was something to do.  Something to keep him treading water.  Somethin' that could figure out answers for them all.  Jack was fighting his war, and Jesse was figuring out who had pulled the strings in the background.

Just needed some time to himself, was all. Not for the first time, he spent Halloween alone, and drunk, and thinking of better times altogether, when he didn't have to, and prolly shouldn't.  

Gabe had always aptly drawn attention to the fact that even though Jesse McCree was damn smart, he wasn't always necessarily the best to his own self.  And even though he'd made progress in bein' more honest to himself...he still was Jesse McCree, and he was still not alway necessarily doin the best thing in his own interests. 

Cause, some things never changed, and if they did, McCree might not know himself ass backwards no more.


	4. If Only You Believed in Miracles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's almost been a full damn year since this last updated, and for that I really apologize. I was finishing up grieving the loss of my closest aunt, and since then I've graduated from college. I'm actually preparing to move to Spain for a job, too!
> 
> With that said, as you clearly see, I've restarted, gotten pep back in my step to seriously write that has really been gone since Liz got sick a year and a half ago.

MARCH, 2076

He really had to stop waking up like this, Jesse blearily thought to himself in the later hours of the morning. The harsh light of day practically shoved him into the darkened ally of his motel restroom to mug his face against the tiled bathroom floor. His stomach, moments later, declared some kinda mutiny against the rest of his body; its first act as new commander was to upheave all of the old guard into the porcelain abyss.

What temporarily stalled that self deprecatory train of thought was when McCree heard the strangest noise possible on his comm. He pulled it out of his back pocket of his jeans strewn on floor between the bathroom and the bed, and opened the damn thing up, and stared at it for a good, long while.

Answer Recall [Y] / [N]?

He looked at it again, and the message still didn't vanish, despite everything that had happened up until this point. Everything he’d done, everything he’d run from. Somehow, as though everything over the last 6 fucking years hadn’t happened, there was a message for him on it, glowing in three-dimensional obnoxious Overwatch-blue text that only served to aggravate his headache somethin’ fierce. 

Overwatch was back, at least to some degree.

He dropped it to the floor, his heart still beating too fast, before he huffed out a laugh, shocked and in disbelief. Overwatch. Like that was gonna work- he really needed to hear a better joke to lighten up his day. And if it wasn’t a joke…well, Jesse wasn’t sure if he needed to muddy the waters by showing his handsome face back there anyway. They’d face enough issues as is. Then there was the bigger issue of if it was even a good idea, or if the UN would decide to label Winston as a war criminal, and put the idealist into prison for it. It’d be pretty hard, though, he had been one of the favorite members of Overwatch for kids. There were stuffed animal toys of him that Jesse knew still had to exist somewhere in the forgotten corners of EBay and amazon. 

“Fuck that,” Jesse muttered, already feeling like he needed another drink as he scooped it up from the floor and flipped the comm off with a quick flick of the wrist-shutting it down mentally.

He vowed two things to himself as he got up and his stomach churned unhappily- reminding him he had yet to go take care of that. One, he _really_ had to stop wakin’ up like this, and two, the day he had a conviction to go back to Overwatch would be a cold day in hell.

After finishing up getting his ass presentable in the bathroom, he felt marginally better. Jesse sighed and rubbed his head, looking to the wall where he had strewn up all the ties and connections he had found since he’d made this his mission. He’d gone and gathered up all the strands he knew of, all the enemies that he n’ Reyes had accumulated together, after the war, and used the information on Talon he’d taken outta Deadlock to get a fuller picture.

Then there were missing pieces abound, ones that didn’t yet fit, but hell if McCree wasn’t gonna find the reasons why.

The assassination in London that had happened the night before (and had coincidentally been a major reason for getting so drunk that particular night), and the Reaper was no longer being an unpredictable terrorist- when before there was no distinctive pattern, now he was…not really necessarily gonna come for Jesse given he wasn’t quite ‘Overwatch’, but was definitely somethin’ to worry about.

It was time to get his fuckin’ act together. He was a black ops operative, fuckin’ vigilante, ex-WMD runner, ex-Deadlock and sharpshooter extraordinaire. It was time to fucking use that for something other than bounty hunting and running from the fuckin US government and any type of law.

And if he was gonna follow any of these leads on who the fuck it was that brought down Overwatch, it meant he had to get outta Santa Fe again. 

Which of course was gonna mean another train.

Dammit.

XXXXX

You know, when he had said it was time to get his act together and actually prove his salt as a vigilante, he didn’t necessarily mean it like this. His face all of a sudden was on every damn screen in Houston, for doin’ a good damn thing. But well, damn if he hadn’t gotten at least one giant fucking clue. 

As he climbed up and over a brick wall to get himself some more room to run, he did really have to wonder about it.

The talon fucks he’d just steamrolled like that had not only been usin’ Blackwatch’s playbook- _his_ playbook, somethin’ he was now takin’ _personal_ offense to. No, one of em had used _his_ name in that same fuckin’ tone they all used to when he was up to somethin’ in the ranks, whether it be a prank or some other kinda mischief.

He’d not forced himself to look at who, exactly, had called him out, not having been in any damn hurry to find out which old partner o’ his had been takin’ the worst part of Blackwatch’s work to the next logical extreme.

He stuffed his serape into his bag, whistling to himself. Sometimes the best way to fade into the background and run was to, well, _not_ run. People don’t suspect someone meandering through the streets, minding their own business, the same way they suspect someone making a mad dash, ducking in and out of places.

And if McCree was just a tad out of shape, well that was _his_ business, mind you.

So Blackwatch had gone rogue. He’d seen it coming, though his memories of that final night were admittedly blurry and depressing for so many reasons.  He could see how that would make the Rome base’s explosion now especially suspect. 

However, with years past since that especially redacted mission, it would be almost impossible to even reopen the file and find out more about who, exactly, had been the wolf in Blackwatch’s clothing.

He looked up towards the sky, and sighed. Not like there was anyone in Blackwatch even close to him to discuss unofficially. Genji hadn’t been in Hanamura, so there was no one else that he could even discuss the Venice mess with who’d been there.

Well… There _was_ one. But Hell if he wanted to get within shooting distance of that woman. Moira was someone Jesse hadn’t enjoyed working with even during the height of their careers in Blackwatch. But she was the only person left that Jesse hadn’t attempted to contact. But he also really wanted to shoot her.

This left him at an impasse, that was quickly resolved by remembering he had no fuckin’ idea where she was either. 

But…well, he’d heard rumors, over the years. Unfortunately, they were all unsubstantiated.   That meant it might be time for him to make a return to a different home, with its own unhappy history and unfinished business. 

XXXXX 

MAY 2076 

Getting to Watchpoint: Grand Mesa was actually not that difficult. What was, was getting past Helix’s guards to actually get into the system. That was somethin’ a little harder to do. Helix was on red alert ever since Jack had shown up for his gun, which had been pretty mysteriously brought all the way over here from the ruins of Zurich. He kinda wondered how the man had gotten separated from it anyways.

Regardless, he hadn’t been Blackwatch for nothing. Sneaking in was his specialty. 

As he walked down an abandoned corridor, sticking close to the wall, he wondered how Fareeha was doing. After all, she’d turned to Helix, so he’d heard. Perhaps she thought it was as close to Overwatch as she’d ever get, now?

Finally, he found the forgotten secret entrance and carefully tapped in his code to enter Blackwatch’s hidden part of the building. God bless Blackwatch’s need to hide in plain sight, he supposed. He turned and checked no one could see him, but he was lucky enough that Reyes had ensured that this door was out of sight of all the security cameras, as was most of the pathway to it.

He sighed as the familiar red lights turned themselves on, several of the regular lights now sadly dead and thus not flicking to life as he walked through long abandoned hallways. He rubbed his face as he passed cobwebs, and felt something hard settle in his stomach as this place, more so than the entire base, felt like a sad time capsule. 

If it hadn’t been for the dust and cobwebs, he could have easily imagined the hustle and bustle of this place springing back from the darkness. He could picture it as though this had all been some trick on him and him alone. 

But it wasn’t. It had all already happened. Everything here that once was, was now gone. People, memories, and his purpose. He let out a long sigh as he found Gabe’s office in the Watchpoint, and slid himself inside. He could so easily remember the way he’d done it when Gabe had been alive and they’d been together, watching Gabriel’s eyes light up as he looked up from some report, and the way they’d made out, Jesse pushing him against the desk.

Now he pulled out the forgotten chair, feeling how cold the leather seat was as it had sat here alone for years now. His fingers rubbed at the worn parts where Gabe’s skin had come into contact with it over and over, and sighed, mournfully.

The room was frozen, and there were still pictures of the good old days resting around. He felt like if he looked too long at it, he wouldn’t be able to rip himself away once more, and would freeze as well. He’d be left for all eternity in a more tangible way than he already had.

Instead, he sat down in Gabe’s old chair and typed in his credentials.

“Welcome back, Agent McCree.” Athena said smoothly as she came online in the background. “I must remind you before continuing that Blackwatch activity is extremely illegal.”

“It’s not the only illegal thing in here.” McCree muttered, pulling out his files and setting them on the desk. “I need to know, Athena. Are there any other reports of Blackwatch agents on the move nearby?”

“I’m afraid I couldn’t tell you that, Agent McCree.” Athena’s voice sounded almost sad to say that, meaning his facial expression had clearly betrayed his disappointment with that knowledge. “No other Blackwatch agent has been here, I can tell you.”

“What was the deal with the recall on our comms?” McCree asked, leaning back in the chair, figuring if he didn’t get that answer, he might as well find out something else.

“Winston’s doing.” She explained, as he clicked his way disinterestedly through his old files, noticing all the old news about Blackwatch changes and how certain people were dead and missing. “Are you interested in accepting, Agent McCree?” 

He made a face at the thought. “Not particularly. There’s a whole mess going on stateside that I’m looking into anyways. Y’all don’t need me, nor should you lot want me.”

“Does that have to do with why you’re in Watchpoint: Grand Mesa?” She asked, innocently, and Jesse paused, wondering what her game was.

He thought about that for a moment, before figured it would be harmless. “It does. I was looking for Genji, but when I came back to the US…well, let's say things got squirrelly.” 

“How so, Agent McCree?” Her need for clarification was increasingly suspicious, and he could definitely tell that she was just trying to keep his attention, but he still didn’t see the harm in playing along for the moment.

“Deadlock’s up and running again.” He explained in a low voice. “I found files linking them directly to Vialli in Venice. But that’s not all I found here. I found somethin’ personal of mine, something that I’d lost ages ago in the caves around Deadlock.” He rubbed his hand on the tattered old bandana he’d kept pocketed. “Something’s not right, and I figured it was about time for me to get figuring out what that was.”

There was a long pause, and McCree frowned. “Athena?” He looked into the apps running in the background, trying to see if the link had been cut. However, as he clicked on her application, the feed suddenly went to video, and the camera in the computer went live. 

“Jesse!” The bright and boisterous voice of Lena Oxton cheerfully rang out. “Oh wow, look at you! You look, uhm. Healthy!” She gave a concerning compliment, clearly excitable, holding up a box of Chinese take out from a restaurant that clearly was nearby the defunct Watchpoint: Gibraltar.

“Athena.” Jesse groaned under his breath, rubbing his face slightly. “Hey, Lena. Good to see you’re doing well too. I had just told Athena that I wasn’t interested in working as a team.”

“I read your article Mr. _Morricone_ , don’t lie about wanting a _posse_.” Tracer replied cheekily, taking a bite. “Winston’s getting up. It’s fine if you don’t want to work with us, yet, but we do have some questions for you while we have you available.”

Jesse groaned again, letting his head fall back into the chair. “Fine, fine, you caught me.” He groused, folding his arms. “Don’t tell Angela, if you happen to see her. Really, anyone.”

“Fine, fine.” She agreed readily. “Where the hell are you, the monitor said Watchpoint: Grand Mesa, but that doesn’t look like any part of the Watchpoint that I’ve seen.” 

“That’s because it’s Blackwatch’s special hidden pocket of the compound. This was Commander Reyes’ office.” Jesse gestured around, voice flat. “And yes, there _is_ one in Gibraltar, and no, I’m _not_ telling you how to find it.”

She was only put out for a minute, puffing out a disappointed huff, before Tracer’s eyes zoomed onto one particular part of the screen, and her face went blank for a minute, before she coughed. “Jesse, what happened to your arm?” She asked, voice careful. 

“Mmm, I figured I needed a new aesthetic.” Jesse deflected easily, shrugging, not rising as Tracer huffed out an unsatisfied sigh. “What do you really want to know, Tracer? I can send you a report if it’s more complicated than a quick story. I don’t wanna be here too long.”

“Right, they have to be on high alert after what Soldier: 76 did!” Tracer said, realizing quickly the nature of this. “How’d you get in, then? It must have been almost impossible.”

“Almost impossible is my forte.” Jesse smirked, snorting as he thought about how the kid didn't know who 76 was just by looking at him. Then again, she was awful young and hadn’t known the strike commander very well. “I _was_ Blackwatch’s finest, Tracer.”

Her face crumpled slightly at the name, and Jesse looked away. “Right, ok. Touchy subject, I suppose. Don’t listen to everything you heard on the news about us, Lena. Most of us were good people who were trying to keep the world safe, same as y’all in blue." 

She licked her lips as Winston came into view. “No, it’s alright. We actually wanted your opinion on the facts of all this, given that this was your specialty.”

A new message was sent into his email, and he opened it. His eyes widened in horror as he recognized the facial features of none other than Amélie Lacroix, her face a terrifying bluish coloration. When he looked to the expressions of the younger ex-agents, Lena was unable to make eye contact, and Winston was staring at him solemnly.

“That’s Mrs. Lacroix.” He stated the obvious. “First, why’s she blue, second, how is she alive?”

“We wanted to confirm with you her identity. I knew that you had known the Lacroix during your time in Blackwatch.” Winston’s voice was filled with…trepidation. “Have you heard of the Widowmaker?”

He blinked, before carefully taking in the other features of the woman. “Talon’s top sniper, yes. I’ve heard of her in merc circles.” He answered carefully.

“I’m afraid to say that…. the Widowmaker has been confirmed to be the former Amélie Lacroix.” Winston explained in a smaller voice than his form should allow.

“How do you know that?” Jesse said, eyes hard as he looked intently to the pair of them. That was a serious accusation, and he remembered well the murkiness of that whole case, and the tragedy of finding Gerard Lacroix murdered, after so many failed attempts, suffocated in his bed, his face peaceful in death.

“She killed Mondatta.” Tracer’s voice was…emotional, upset. “I tried to stop her, engage her, but…. She shot clean through my chronal accelerator.” Lena felt her chest, and closed her eyes in grief. “I failed.”

Jesse rolled the chair back, physically reeling from having these pieces lined up for him. “So she must have murdered Gérard.” He muttered, feeling his hands ball up into fists, staring at the worn wood of the desk. “And she also must have been the sniper to murder Captain Amari.”

He wasn’t even able to look up as he heard Lena gasp in horror, but when he finally met their gaze again, he saw Winston’s arm around her, comforting his friend. “She was the one who…” Tracer’s voice was watery, and McCree nodded carefully.

“The facts of the case were this: Morrison’s final report on what her last words were was that she was pretty certain there were two snipers, but they were able to clear cover after Amari cleared a single position. She was ordered to disengage, but refused, deciding to take on the sniper against Morrison’s orders. He extrapolated that this meant that, in the end, whoever this was represented a serious threat, one that had taken members of Ana’s squad, and so she responded by getting personal with her. Whoever it was, was also one of Talon’s…and we had known of a new sniper in Talon’s ranks that was fast as the wind and a damn good shot.”

“Widowmaker.” Winston finished, as Tracer’s face crumpled further in upset- no doubt wishing that she had managed to stop her.

“It fits the profile pretty well.” Jesse sighed, taking out a cigar and lighting it. “Considering her other high profile kill was another high ranking member in Overwatch.” He took a long drag. “Was that all you wanted to ask me about?” 

“No.” Winston said after a moment, his voice unsteady as he squeezed his friend tighter, the image almost comical if it wasn’t the fact that the poor thing looked about ready to cry. “There was another that we wanted to talk to you about.”

Jesse scrolled through the email, and saw a ghostly picture of a bone white mask on a bad security feed. “The Reaper.” He confirmed, unprompted, noticing that the feed was from Watchpoint: Gibraltar. “You’re lucky to have made it out alive, Winston; but what on earth did he want with you?" 

“He came with Talon soldiers and tried to hack into Athena’s database.” Winston explained. “That happened the same night I initiated the recall- he was…downloading the Overwatch agent database.”

“Talon?” McCree realized what he’d said, shocked. “The Reaper’s never taken a side before, not that we’ve ever been able to track…”

“Well, apparently he’s no longer a nonaligned actor,” Winston clarified, voice grave. “And there’s worse news. He’s started…well, taking _down_ members of Overwatch." 

McCree licked his lips. “I see.” He murmured, folding his hands and resting his elbows on the old wooden desk, before resting his chin on his hands. “So he got out with part of it…and it's a hit list. 

He looked to the ceiling, pulling his lips into his mouth for a minute. “I have only a single, solitary clue about that particular mess. Unfortunately, Reyes never let us investigate the Reaper, as he was considered too dangerous. Any men sent after him were found dead, and the risk of us being exposed was considered too great to track down a mercenary like that. But his abilities…well. How well do you remember Moira O’Deorain?”

“The Blackwatch scientist?” Tracer piped up, confused. “I remember that, Overwatch hadn’t known that she’d been hired, and her work was…well. Controversial. I never found out the whole story about that, being honest.” She trailed off, rubbing her arm and looking down.

“No, that’s mostly the story. It was a mess and a half, but I aint here to rehash the Venice incident and my least favorite coworker. However, his abilities very _closely_ mirror her work with Reyes.”

“What was she doing with Commander Reyes?” Winston asked, and Jesse shrugged. “He wouldn’t tell us the full story. All I knew was that he was sick. Something from the SEP that he and Morrison had gone through during the crisis had made them both special, but it also meant that…well. Something had gone wrong.” He rubbed his temples. “Regardless. If I’ve heard the rumors then so have you.”

“That Dr. O’Deorain works for Talon.” Winston frowned, the expression strange on the ape.

“Exactly.” McCree nodded. “I wouldn’t put it past her to have gotten her research funded by them, especially because Blackwatch being frozen meant her research had been as well.”

“Those are just rumors.” Winston said, skeptical. “They’re completely unsubstantiated claims, and even though I think that her work could use a bit more caution, I think that a lot of the claims leveled against her were wrong.”

“You might be right, Winston.” McCree acknowledged. “But I’ll tell you both this; going off my gut, I never liked her. From day one, she smelled like a rat. During the Venice incident, it was like she wasn’t even phased by what was happening.”

“That could just be her personality, McCree.” Winston defended weakly. “I haven’t had the pleasure of working with her yet, but I have received invitations from Oasis’ Ministry of Genetics and their Ministry of Physics.”

“And I take it she works there.” Jesse groaned, because of course she fucking had sent invitations to Winston. Bitch was trying to win him over. “Fine, fine. I’ll let that one go. But that’s my hunch.”

“What were you telling Athena about what you had been dealing with in the US?   Tracer asked, finding her voice again, noticing the slight tension between Winston and McCree.

“Ah.” McCree wrung his hands out. “Deadlock- had a few hunches to follow and a few stories to investigate. They’re getting stronger again, and I’m fairly certain it’s because Talon’s got some money in that. But, speaking of the devil, a couple of Talon mooks showed up on a train I was riding out of New Mexico, they were after some sorta strange tech.” He looked to the side. “I came here because I knew their playbook.”

“But wait, did you let them get the tech?” Tracer asked, slowly. 

“Had to.” Jesse shrugged. “They woulda kept coming after it, and I couldn’t have been there twice to save that train. I knew their playbook, ‘cause it was my playbook.”

“Blackwatch.” Winston said, with dawning understanding.

Jesse nodded. “They weren’t plannin’ on leaving witnesses. That much I coulda told you from the moment I saw them pull out Blackwatch techniques to get on a train moving that fast. Worse, one of them said my name right as I cleaned house.” He cracked his knuckles. “They’re not just bein’ trained by some ex-Blackwatch person. They are ex-Blackwatch. Unlucky for them that they ran into the best of the best at that game, since Reyes’ death.”

Winston and Tracer were silent for a long time. “Anyways.” Jesse waved a hand. “Came here to see who all had passed through, if anyone. Doesn’t look like it, though.” He looked around Reyes’ office, once again sad at how frozen in time this place was. “Just ghosts.”

“And that Soldier: 76 person!” McCree snorted at Tracer’s reminder, rolling his eyes as they both squinted at him.

“Nah, he’s a ghost too.” McCree corrected. “One you’ll understand in time, I’m sure of it. But I don’t know everything.”

“You don’t _believe_ Olympia Shaw’s crackpot theory about him, do you?” Winston asked, clearly skeptical. McCree snorted again, shrugging.

“Hey, she called me and Reyes the _scourge_ of her generation in that one article of hers two years ago. I take her words with several pounds of salt.” He worked around answering that question enigmatically. “Regardless, I’ve not found anything here. Unfortunately, that means I have to keep looking elsewhere.”

“You know, Jesse…” Tracer started, before stopping, seeming unsure of herself. “We really _could_ use someone like you. Winston and I don’t know anything of how to run Overwatch. And you…well, you _were_ Reyes’ second in command.” She trailed off again. “I know we’re no Blackwatch but…surely, I know you’re trying to fix the problems you see in the world too. You should join us.”

Jesse took the cigar out from between his lips, and let out a long sigh as he contemplated that. She wasn’t wrong, not in the least. Past the shell of thinking he would _never_ want to be apart of Overwatch again, there were all sorts of reasons why he should.

“I can’t.” He said, watching her face fall, before he finished. “Not yet at least.” He took another drag. “I have one more place to look, before I could even think about that. It’s better if it’s small scale, as y’all get your feet off the ground. Blackwatch was originally just me and Reyes. It got bigger over years. You two are the perfect starting point, it’ll get easier as you go along.”

She looked hopeful at that, at least. “Thank you, Jesse.” She murmured, turning to Winston and nodding.

He coughed, emotions high in his chest, and he wanted to be done with this. “Anyways. I need to get going- Helix is gonna have a _lotta_ questions for me if I’m caught leaving this place. And if y’all _really_ want someone off the old vanguard, I’d say you should ask Reinhardt. He’ll drop everything in a heartbeat to come to you. And last I heard, he was carting around one of Torb’s kids. Kid’ll prolly be useful than the old man, but damn if he’s not experienced with leadership and widely beloved. Unlike me.”

“Actually, that’s not a bad idea.” Winston thought carefully, one hand rubbing his face. “But would the Lieutenant really be okay with us just…calling him?”

“Are you kiddin’ me?” Jesse snorted, rolling his eyes and his hand that held his cigar with a dramatic flair. “He’ll be offended that you even asked me first. I promise he’s overly friendly, if hard to start up a relationship with. Call him, I promise he’ll agree right off the bat. If he doesn't, tell him you asked me first. That’ll get him riled up.”

“That’s great information, Jesse.” Tracer grinned, already back to being positive. “Hey! Keep your comms on more often, we _really_ could use your input, even if you’re not going to join us yet.”

He sighed. “I’ll try to. I am really on radio silence most of the time for my protection, I hope you realize.”

“And some of the time you’re just avoiding Dr. Ziegler.” Tracer finished his sentence and made him cough some. “Don’t worry. I doubt she’ll seek you out.”

“That’s _not_ the issue.” Jesse admitted, rubbing his neck as Tracer’s cheerful reassurance opened up a new can of worms in Jesse’s stomach. “I will have to be on radio silence for a bit, though. Let me go. I’ll contact y’all once its safe to.”

“Good luck, Jesse!” Tracer said, as Winston echoed her with a far more formal McCree, and the feed cut out. Jesse was left staring at the computer background once more, and he sighed, before he stood.

As the light from the computer flashed while he was standing, something in a corner of the desk glinted into his eyes. He furrowed his brow, and looked closer, and saw a photo frame, and just beneath it, innocuous, was a set of dog tags. He picked those up first, rubbing his thumb over it. “GABRIEL REYES.”

But why would Gabe have left his tags like this? That wasn’t like him. Really, nothing that he’d done towards the end had been like him, but…it was all strange. He took out the bandana, and cleaned the dust off the tags with it, before reading it closer. There was his blood type, the reminder that Gabe was raised Catholic (and therefore had no religion left in him), and a long string of numbers.

06 0000 0024.

He traced his fingers over it again, contemplating all this. 24 _was_ a number that was familiar to him, he’s fairly certain that Gabe had mentioned it to him before. Especially in light of Soldier: 76… well. He knew that Gabe had been in the SEP before Jack, so…24 ought to be his main identification.

Something suspicious was definitely going on, and the only place this could lead was further into Gabe’s past- to the very SEP he got this dog tag from. He pocketed both items, and sighed, closing his eyes as resolve solidified in his gut.

He leaned over and shut the computer off, sighing as the quiet room threatened to consume him. He took the photo frame off the desk, staring at the image of Ana, Jack, and Gabe, the three of them serious in the still photo. All of them were dead, and gone, and forgotten. And yet, this place, this photo? It was still like Jesse could imagine his voice. He took the photo out of the frame, and pocketed it. “I’m leaving, Gabe.” He said to the still air around him, before another voice, strange but familiar, interrupted him.

“You’re not going anywhere.”

XXXXX

“How’d you know how to get in?” McCree drawled as he sat at the interview table in handcuffs.

“We’ve worked here for years. We saw you on the security footage and knew there was only one place you could have gone.” The masked employee sat across from him, her familiarity uncanny and sending off all sorts of weird warnings to him.

“This place wasn’t on the schematics, though.” He waved his hands as best he could, with his hands cuffed to the metal loop on the table. “How’d you even figure out the code?”

“You’re not answering my question, though.” The woman ignored him flatly. “Why did you come here?”

“I was looking for answers, but then again, aren’t we all? When are your buddies gonna come arrest me?” He asked, rolling his eyes.

The woman across from him took a long pause, sizing him up. And then she removed her helmet. Jesse’s jaw dropped.

“Fareeha??” He just barely avoided stammering, as her brown eyes bored into him.

“Hello, Jesse.” She said, arms crossed.

He wasn’t quite sure of what to say, actually. So he went with the basics. “Hi,” He forced out. She snorted.

“Hello.   I see you weren’t expecting me.” She stated the obvious. “Who did you call?”

“No one.” He said, unable to lie with the shock still working its way through him. “Overwatch called me. Athena had come back online, and with Recall in motion she notified Winston.”

“Recall?” He didn’t miss the way her tone seemed…almost longing. “Explain.”

“It's just that.” Jesse twisted his hands uncomfortably. “They’re trying to set Overwatch back up. Wanted my opinion on a few things I had more knowledge about after I turned their offer down. I was mostly here to find information on what certain old Blackwatch assets are doing.”

“You were on the news the other day.” She frowned, looking down as she pulled out a file on him. His wanted poster had been updated with a new bounty, it seemed like. “They said you launched a raid on a hyper train.”

“C’mon Fairy, you should know me better than that.” He tried to play towards their history, scrunching his brow together in disbelief at her pulling this information up.

“I thought I did, but that room, that _place_? Reminds me I didn’t.” She said, voice cold, and it was hard for him to hide the hurt breath that was sucked into his chest that suddenly felt tighter than it did, even in the moments after he’d been caught.

“That cuts deep, Fareeha, I hope you know.” He muttered, staring down at the cuffs on his wrists. “I can’t change your opinion, but you should know our work was a helluva lot more complicated than our games of cops and robbers.”

“You've been gone for 6 _years_ Jesse.” Her voice was strained. “I don't have much choice to question everything I thought I knew, with all the news that has come out about what you and Gabriel _did_.”

“I’ve stayed gone to protect you.” He sharply disagreed. “You’ve known me for 20 years. You let some wannabe investigative journalist that doesn’t know heads from tails make you think I’m some _monster_?”

“Then what did you really do on that hyper train.” She pressed on anyways, not making eye contact with him. “Who stole that technology from Helix?”

“ _Talon_ , same as who killed your mother, killed Overwatch and Blackwatch and all of our fucking names and reputations, the one’s I’ve spent 6 years running from.” Jesse spat at her, rage at being accused by his oldest friend of such crimes bubbling up in him. “And a few ex Blackwatch, and that's fuckin’ why I was here. I’m sure people on that train have already said in the media that I wasn’t part of any raid. I was the one who _saved_ them.” He turned away. “Listen, if you’re gonna turn me in, turn me in. I ain’t got nothin’ else to say to you.”

Silence ruled for a minute, before she undid the cuffs. He rubbed his wrists, staring down at his calloused hands. “Don’t let me catch you again, Jesse.” She told him, her voice flat. “Next time I might not be able to let you go.”

He stood, the cuts against his heart burning hot in his chest. “Don’t worry.” He headed to the door. “You _won’t_ be seeing me again, there ain’t nothin’ here for me.”

Nothing was said as he left, and it wasn’t for the first time that he hated everything he’d become and how much he’d lost.

XXXXX

JUNE 2076

It had taken quite a bit of research into this particular issue, but he’d finally figured out the base location to look for. His hunch was growing stronger with every fucking step he took, in spite of how he’d told Winston he’d drop it and in spite how he’d told Tracer that Commander Reyes was dead.

But he wouldn't have any proof until he tracked down SEP information about Gabe. He _needed_ to find his files, see what that program had done to him. The more he honed in on that being the missing link in the picture, the more he compared Reaper’s activities to what he remembered Reyes becoming…

Jesse didn’t want to hope, yet. But as he opened up the door to a forgotten, abandoned outpost from the Crisis, grown over by its surroundings, dilapidated and covered in all sortsa signage to keep the fuck out…he couldn’t help but think he’d finally stumbled across a meaningful lead.

Unlike walking through Watchpoint: Grand Mesa’s guarded halls, this place felt like entering a tomb. Dust and dirt coated the floors, and equipment was left empty. The walls had since long been stripped of their wiring, plumbing, and the lights hung from the ceiling, broken and dead.

His spurred boots echoed ominously down the halls, and his hand rested on his gun. Even though there wasn’t nobody in sight, hell if McCree would take any chances. This whole forgotten bunker was straight out of a haunted house’s terrifying version of a military camp, and Jesse couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched.

He came to the end of the hall, and found a door that wasn’t knocked inwards and broken like the rest. He knocked against it, and found that in spite of its wooden outward appearance, it was actually metal. The lock system on it was still functional, and that piqued his interest. 

Luckily for him, he had a few tricks up his sleeve yet. He kneeled down, and began work unlocking the device. It took him all of a minute, and Jesse rolled his eyes. The US government really needed to step up their game. Though he supposed he did, this was all too easy for him to break into. He stood once more, and took a deep breath.

He pushed the door open, and was shocked to find a generator that turned itself on, making lights come to life, along with a computer. Boxes lined the wall, but two were conspicuously opened. One lay on the desk, and the other on the floor, it’s lid ajar.

He went to the one on the desk, and pulled out a random file. SOLDIER: 72 it said in red text, and Jesse flicked it open to discover a gruesome image. A picture of a body rested just beneath the army photo of a red headed recruit with sleepy green eyes staring straight forward. The body was practically melted in the middle, and Jesse had to resist the urge to vomit at the sight of its concave chest and blood and entrails oozing from his opened lips.

He closed the folder, and moved toward the back of the box, finding soldiers number 73, 74, 75 and 77. That gave him pause, and he rested between numbers 75 and 77. He flicked between the two manila folders for a minute, before he leaned back, his brow creased. Jack Morrison’s folder was missing.

With a bad feeling in his stomach, he turned his attention to the box with the partially ajar lid. Something was preventing it from laying flat, and with Jack’s missing folder a heavy thought in his mind, he lifted the lid, and felt his eyes widen.

A lone tightly knitted black beanie rested above the files, one that McCree picked up with shaking hands. He rubbed his hands over the fabric, and felt something like a punch to the gut, his breath hitching as he held it to his chest, before he pulled it up to his nose, and breathed in deep.

The scent was faint, but unmistakable. This beanie…belonged to Gabriel Reyes. He shivered, his grief palpable in his chest as he gripped the item tighter.

He already had a sick feeling in his chest, but went to the front quarter of the box, gently moving his way back until he found the empty gap between Soldier’s 23 and 25. He breathed out a shaking breath, and shook his head, closing the lid and pocketing the beanie as well.

This was all the proof Jesse needed that something was going on here, more than just a series of coincidences. The strange clues that he’d gotten to get to this point, combined with the strange signs of more recent usage here, and the forgotten beanie…well. This sure as hell felt like some set up. Someone had _wanted_ him to come here. They had known he would follow along this path- and had littered it with things belonging to Gabriel Reyes.

That was all fairly certain at this point: but it begged the question. _Why_ was someone laying a neat little path for Jesse to follow along, hiding clues along the pathway that only someone like Jesse would recognize for what they were. 

Who was even behind this? Would Jesse find them at the end of this fucked up scavenger hunt? Not just that, but _what_ on earth would be at the end of this journey?

Unfortunately, this left him with few options. The beanie wasn’t much of a clue, the general files were redacted to hell, Gabe’s file was fucking missing, and so was Jack’s. He _needed_ to go see Jack for more information…since he was the only one alive who would know anything more.

But where the fuck did that motherfucker run off to this time?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can see, this is picking up for real now. I'll see you next time I update, probably in like a months time if not sooner. If you want more information about my thoughts about Moira's involvement, I invite you to read my story Blue Lotus, which will be updated every sunday. It's labeled as Moirana and moira & gabe, and it really is a compilation of what i think they did to get to talon. 
> 
> feel free to comment / criticise. I'd love to hear your thoughts abt it.


	5. Desperado

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So its not next month. But I have updated regardless. Time for a quick change in perspective. But don't worry- the chapter still ends with Jesse. A few new faces here as well.

“I had heard the coffee was terrible, but this really is something.” Moira hummed as she sat at the bar, turning to her companion. “How was LA?”

“It’s just not the same since they cleaned up all the smog,” He coughed, nearly choking on the rubbery eggs. His voice was low, and the woman serving them seemed terrified of the whole situation. But really, they weren’t here for her, or any of the staff at this subpar diner.

“Your family?” She sipped at her coffee that she had dumped copious amounts of sugar and milk into despite her complaints, carefully taking bites out of the pastry she had wisely ordered.

There was a pause as he stared down at his plate. “They looked fine- happy even. My sister seems like she’s doing well. What were you busy with?” Reaper asked back, red eyes meeting hers as she smiled, the expression relaxed.

“Working, naturally. I’ve been busy writing a new paper about fixing you, when I’m finished working out the kinks in the methodology, we’ll begin work on implementing the changes.” She stretched, cracking her spine as the servers seemed to shudder. “Though admittedly, your condition does seem relatively stable.” 

“No one’s accused me of that in a long time.” He poked his fork at her as Moira rolled her eyes. “Why are we here?”

“Vialli had heard there was trouble here and asked that while you were overseas, you check it out. I offered to assign it to you directly, something he was more than happy to allow.” Moira explained. “Trouble of a _familiar_ kind, Gabriel." 

He blinked at her using his name, and pondered that, looking around the diner once again as a hyper train made the place shake as it passed overhead. He felt the red vinyl of his seat with a clawed hand, before it hit him. “Right, this was where I picked up the damn _ingrate_.” He recalled unhappily, the image of a red bandana and a deadlock tattoo and a measly six shooter making fools out of a team of soldiers from the Crisis raising its ugly head.

“Yes, that one.” She agreed, setting down her coffee glass and tilting her head at him. “I’m surprised it you had to remember him. He leaves quite the impression.”

Reaper snarled behind his mask. “He’s a traitor.” He hissed.

Moira hummed, setting down her pastry as well. “Do you _really_ not remember?” She asked, almost tauntingly. “Well, another symptom, I suppose.” She sipped her glass of water. “You need to go find something for that. The memories will slide back to you as you go. I’m unsure if you recall it, but there are caves just outside of this place. I’ll handle Deadlock, you sort yourself out.” 

“Can you really handle Deadlock on your own?” Reaper asked, feeling odd that Moira was pushing him aside so quickly. Usually she was never one to want to get her hands dirty. Had her face too far in a book or her work and pulling her out of _that_ was a chore. 

“Listen, Reyes, it is pointless for me to fix you if you’re not there to be fixed.” She reminded flatly, tapping her long nails against the counter. “And I need your mental faculties at their _best_ if we’re really going to try to repair any part of you. If you’re unconvinced I can handle some rowdy gang members on my own, I’ll go visit the Cave of Mystery.” She rolled her eyes. “Finally see why the cowboy made all that fuss about it." 

She left cash by their plates, and gestured for Reaper to follow her out.

He made a face as he realized what she was saying. “You want me to go on a treasure hunt?”

“If you would like to think of it as one, then yes, _please_ go on this treasure hunt.” Moira’s voice was dry with sarcasm. “But I remain the messenger. You’re the one who put those things around this country. I just need you to find the one here." 

“Just come with me, Moira.” He said, voice tired. “I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I get the feeling that you’re wanting me to do it alone because you know what it is and I’m not going to react well.”

Moira pursed her lips, folding her arms behind her. She took a moment to rock back. “It’s personal,” She carefully used her hands to awkwardly pat down her coat. “We share _many_ things, but I like to think that _some_ are off limits.”

Reaper smirked. “You and Angela. That seedy bar in Zurich.”

Moira’s eyes widened as she hissed for him to shut up, that had been an accident, and Reyes should know to keep quiet about her nocturnal activities lest she give them both up.

“I’ll shut up when you come with.” He had won this fight, and it showed in her glower. “Or, better yet, tell me what I’m looking for.” 

Moira made a face. “If I do that you’ll be able to rack my brain for it. I don’t want you taking any more of my memories as your own. It just blurs that line between us more, Gabriel.”

“It’ll make things easier.” Reaper pointed out, not particularly wanting to go on this mission to _find_ something he’d hid for himself. What sort of bullshit inception reference was that, anyways?

“Easier isn’t the word I’d use for it. It will make your healing process more complicated. I want to keep you as true to form as I can. But given that you’re so inclined to impatience, you have made this exceptionally difficult. We’ll go there together.” Moira caved. 

“Perfect.” Reaper gloated over his victory flatly, and Moira gave him the stink eye, mentally boring into the back of his head.

They certainly made an odd pair as they walked through the desert town, and Moira gestured to the edge. “It’ll be easier if we go through here.”

“You see the sheer cliff face, right? Or has your late night coffee work sessions finally driven you over the edge?” Reaper watched, eyes dead, as Moira rolled her eyes, vanishing in a heart beat and jumping the 5 feet down, and into the cliff face- where she reappeared, briefly, before vanishing….apparently into a cave. 

Reaper followed her as smoke, and Moira stretched. “See?” She picked up a lantern and lit the gas inside with a match from the floor beside it. “Let’s go, we don’t have all day.”

They wandered the caves in relative silence. Reaper wasn’t feeling anything _slide_ into place, like Moira had said, but she seemed relatively determined, so he wasn’t going to argue. He didn’t want to have to deal with Deadlock anyways, if he was honest.

Eventually they arrived to wherever Moira had wanted them to go, and she set down her lantern. “Alright, I had wanted this to be personal.” She stressed for Gabriel, walking towards the wall as she looked back towards him haughtily. “So don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

She sat down, and took out her phone, clearly wanting to ignore whatever it was that was in front of them.

Almost sick from strange anticipation, Gabriel walked forward until he felt his foot hit something solid, and he reached over to grab the glinting object. “It’s another lantern.” He said, voice low. “Quite…illuminating,” He deadpanned, before Moira cursed, scrambling to her feet to come over quickly. 

She brought her lantern with her, and as the light spilled over the floor, Moira cursed louder, putting her hand on her face as she used a foot to turn over the forgotten items of clothing on the floor. “It’s gone.” She said, irritated, looking around. “And someone else has _been_ here.”

Reaper quickly took stock of what he could see: an outfit, seemingly cheap and dirty, the shaved off remnants of dyed hair, that had piled and partially blown away, an abandoned flask that smelled of whiskey, and a cigar- only part of it, the rest burnt away.

He picked up the butt, turning it over in his hands.

An image flashed in the light of the gas lantern, and he could make out a figure sitting at the edge of a cliff face, a cigar held in his hands, smoke drifting away quickly in the ocean breeze. He could feel words in his chest, and could feel the way his body ached to join him.

Wind howled through the caves behind them, and the sound of it overpowered whatever it was he’d said. The man at the cliff side had patted the earth beside him, and Reaper walked towards him.

Feeling like somehow this memory diverged, a double image like a TV screen that had been overexposed and had burned a scene into it. When he finally approached the figure, he was standing and yet sitting as well. Neither faced Gabriel, but the second- the standing figure- turned towards him. Black cape. Black hat. Black suit. Just obscured beneath his cape, half of a familiar, red black and white symbol on a shirt sleeve.

Blackwatch, his mind filled in a blank more easily.

Its face was there but it wasn’t. Reaper couldn’t, didn’t want to see it. Cigar smoke clouded it.

_“This is all **your** fault, Reyes! We could have walked Antonio right out of the city! I didn’t sign up for this!”_

Words bubbled up in his throat, to _maintain operational silence, McC-_

The words were lost as the apparition hands leapt out at him from the darkness, wrapping their way around his throat, and squeezing tight as the acrid smell of cigar smoke burnt his nose and he was choking, drowning, flailing without sign of shore or a dock to cling to.

Then suddenly he was sitting on the floor next to the earlier form, all sign of the second gone. An arm wrapped around him, and Gabriel felt warm, something he’d long since felt. He looked toward the horizon, and smelled beer- beer? No, no, the flask…it had been whiskey, hadn’t it, in the flask?

The vision seemed suddenly insubstantial, but he had to- had to see his face.

Warm brown eyes met his own, a slightly exasperated grin. He couldn’t hear anything except the sea breeze howling, and static in his ears. His lips were moving, and the sun was going down. “Don’t you want to stay, Gabe? Wouldn’t it be easier?” His voice was sultry, heavy, and yet… something was off. It was pulling him under.

But Gabriel’s eyes were half lidded- it was easier, wasn’t it? He closed them as the apparition shoved him over. A hand ghosted over his cock, and noises were drawn out of him. “Yes, please,” He begged, body arching beneath him.  The hand ghosted over his face, and Gabriel’s eyes opened, wanting to drink in this man’s appearance. Brown eyes, brown hair. The features were there but Gabriel couldn’t make him out at all. His lips moved, needing to say his name, his name, his name. 

“J,” He couldn’t quite get the word out, feeling stuck in the thick molasses of his gaze, his hands still around his throat, and squeezing, the warmth now suffocating heat. His eyes rolled up into his head, as he felt chapped lips claim his own possessively, facial hair scuffing up against his bare face beneath his mask.

A third image was overlaid, and Reaper felt stuck, frozen. Something was wrong. Something had changed. Gabriel’s tongue felt thick, his whole body seeming…off. It could be the way he felt pulled into all three places at once. But he stood across from the man with the tanned skin and hardened brown eyes- that molasses crystallized around him and keeping him still.

There was a pause, and his face, his familiar face, whose features began to reveal themselves slowly to him- a strong jaw that was set defiantly, facial hair that had rubbed against his own when they’d kissed, and a nose that sat prominent on his face, just slightly bent from one too many punches to it. Pouty lips good for kissing now set in a hard line that just ever so slightly trembled. Brown eyes that just barely glistened with hurt.

Gabriel felt dizzy. What’d he say to make this man look at him, look at him like he’d betrayed him.

“Jess,” He’d said, voice one that didn’t yet belong to a dead man walking.

“Out.” The man’s voice was harder than his gaze. It didn’t sound like the first figure’s sultry one. It sounded like the one that came from all around and yet he _knew_ started from the second figures faceless form.

He looked down and saw two white pills in his hands, and he took them without thinking. He couldn’t remember taking the bottle out of his pockets. He was suddenly ushered out of the scene, an unseen force sucking him out as the image before him distorted with unhappiness and the miserable odor of whiskey, the man before him turning his back on Gabriel or was it Gabriel that had turned his back on him?

When he opened his eyes, he was holding a belt buckle in his hand. The gold symbol gleamed, the skull and wings matching Deadlock’s imagery and the angry, faceless figure’s own outfit.  He blinked, coming to, and his eyes focused on Moira’s form angry tossing the flask aside. “Jesse McCree.” She said the name like a curse, having not noticed Gabriel’s breakdown to her side.

“Jesse.” Reaper said to the belt and the still air and the angry memory. He set it down once more, closing his eyes. He felt the memories settle in him like concrete solidifying in his stomach, expanding and threatening and unstoppable. “Jesse McCree.”

XXXXX

OCTOBER 2076

A full year now since he’d solely devoted himself to looking for answers, and he aint one-step closer, it felt like. He had burned a hole in his heart and his pocket, carrying Gabe’s old things.

This time of year was always heavy, but this year it was heavier than normal. He bunched up the beanie, and held it against his face. It was hard having this, and yet impossible to imagine letting it go again. He remembered all those nights on missions they’d bundled close together and Jesse had put his chin over Gabe’s head as the other man played little spoon, the texture of his hat a pillow over his shaved scalp with its fuzzy and sometimes irritating hair.

He sighed heavily as he walked through LA with his head down, smoking as discretely as possible. Tourists gawked at him but locals ignored both him and them. He had a lot more things on his mind, so he was just lucky that LA was a place where the only people who cared about how out of place he looked were people who looked just as equally out of place.

He was makin’ his rounds to Gabe’s grave early this year, since he had a strong idea about where Jack was right about now, having gotten a lead all the way down past the border with Mexico.

But that thing that burned bright in his heart demanded a visit to his grave. And so he went to that lonely graveyard with an unassuming grave.

The sunshine gave it all an ironic atmosphere, but Jesse sat down in front of the gravestone and sighed. He took out the dog tags from his pocket, and rubbed his hands over them once again.

“It’s been a while, Gabe.” He mumbled. “I’ve not heard from your ghost recently. That’s been…it’s been hard.” He paused, and closed his eyes, his crows feet wrinkling as his brows furrowed together, pain heavy in his chest. “I’m still looking for answers. I promise. I’m sorry about Jack and I. Don’t be too mad. We both…we both missed you.”

He let out a shaky breath. “I’m trying to live. Move on. I know…I know we didn’t end well. I know what you said but…I never was able to say it to _you_.” He wiped dry tears from his eyes. “I loved you. I still do. I probably always will.” The gravestone was impassive, but Jesse rubbed at the dog tags harder. “I don’t know if you’re in the ground, or not. But I think you are. The man I loved is, probably. I’ll keep searching. I promise. But…I have to keep moving forward. Ever since…ever since Jack and I slept together, I’ve not…I’ve not heard you.” He wrung his hands out, feeling them shake.

“It’s probably a good thing. But I’m going to miss you now. More than ever.”

He stood, and pocketed the dog tags once again. “I’ll keep going. I have to. I’ve…stayed still long enough. I have to…find the will to move again, and _actually_ move. I won’t get anything done keeping on like this. I…I’m going to find Jack. And I’m going to work with him. If it’s not him, then it’ll be Genji. And we’ll get justice. I promise.”

The only thing that answered him was the lazy LA wind, and Jesse felt something that had coiled around his heart and choked him for _years_ finally let him go. He breathed out a shaky breath, and for the first time, he felt like he could see clearly, without that heady veil of depression hanging over him, blinding him and keeping him walking in self deprecating circles.

He was done wallowing and chasing his own tail. He was done self-sabotaging so that he didn’t have to ever try. He had to move forward again, and break this loop. 

It was time to say goodbye to Gabriel. The man he knew and loved was dead.

He would want Jesse to keep going.  He had to have. 

He turned away from the grave, and as he walked out of the lonely plot, he turned his comm back on.

Jesse breathed out smoke as he walked towards a café to grab a bite to eat and go through his messages.

XXXXX

Tracer had been overjoyed when he’d called them up on the comm to say he’d work at least _adjacent_ to them.

“I’m happy to at least do recon for y’all.” He admitted. “Any luck getting the old man to join?” He asked, leaning back in his chair as he chatted her up, drinking his coffee without whiskey in it, for once.

“Not yet,” Tracer admitted, looking almost a bit disappointed as she fiddled with her hands. “He said he had business to take care off too. The sad kind. The girl with him seemed…unhappy we called.”

“How old did she sound?” Jesse drawled, taking a bite of a sandwich. “I’m bad at rememberin’ each of the Torb spawn’s life, but I know their names and ages, at least.”

“She sounded like…my age?”

“His youngest then.” Jesse swallowed. “Yep. Brigitte always did have a thing for him, I could see her trailin’ after him like a baby duck. He was practically her other dad.”

“Could you tell her that Overwatch is different, now?” Tracer asked, seeming hopeful.

“Unfortunately, I didn’t know her too well.” He rubbed his neck awkwardly. “She’s 3 years younger than _you_ Tracer. She was…what, like…15 when the mess in Venice happened? Her memories of me are prolly spotty and colored as hell, if she even knows who I am. Think I saw her last at Pharah’s college graduation. She was 12, and I was 26- we had less than nothing to talk about.” 

“Awh.”

McCree let a beat pass, before he sighed. “You could ask Fareeha to talk to her. She’d also probably jump at the chance to join you…and they were close.”

“Weren’t you close with her?” Tracer asked, her voice genuine, but McCree just looked out to the flat horizon of LA.

“Not anymore.”

Tracer didn’t know how to respond to that, but that was fine, since Winston appeared in the background. “McCree.” He said, sounding…unsure of himself. “if you’d be willing, I’d…well, I’d like you to meet someone at the airport. She’s had a long journey, and against my recommendations, she plans to keep going?”

McCree raised a brow. “Sure. I don’t see the harm. Who’s it I’m picking up?" 

Winston looked relieved. “Mei-Ling Zhou. She’s, it’s just. I can’t go over to LA and I know you’re right there.”

“Hey, whoa, wait.” McCree held up a hand. “The climatologist? One of the team in Antarctica that died?”

“She didn’t die.” Winston said solemnly. “She was the only person to survive. And she could use a familiar face. Dr. Ziegler is… well, in Iraq right now. You’re very close, and I think she knew you.”

“We met a few times, through Angie.” Jesse agreed, rubbing the back of his head. “I didn’t know her too well, but if it means she saves money instead of getting an Uber, sure. I’ll pick her up.”

“I owe you.” Winston said, nodding gratefully.

Jesse shrugged. “Get me a stiff drink next time in Gibraltar, and we’ll be fine. I’ll head to the LAX now, though.   Need to grab my ride from where I parked it.”

XXXXX 

Winston was going to owe him more than a stiff drink. 

“What _was_ Blackwatch, anyway?” Mei asked from his passenger seat, her bags thrown into the backseat and a robot sleeping on her lap, as they sat in bumper to bumper traffic, trying to exit the LAX.

She was a scientist, that was for damn sure. Definitely knew what questions to ask. He knew that he had to cut her some slack, since she’d been frozen for 9 years, but…that didn’t make recounting these things any easier.

He sighed as he turned down the radio. “I’m sure you figured out that I was in it by now.”

Mei nodded, seeming to notice from his change in tone and the way his body language almost seemed to close up.

“It was… well.” Jesse looked to the horizon. “It was Reyes’ part of Overwatch. It really was just Overwatch’s real black ops. We did a lot of dirty work. But we did a lot of good work, don’t get me wrong.” His voice was sad. “It has the wrong reputation now, but…do you remember Genji?”

Mei blinked, before she swallowed. “The Shimada heir, right? Angela and Winston mentioned him in their final transmissions to me- that he was the case taking up most of their time.” Mei’s voice was soft, looking down.

“His brother ripped him limb from limb at the clan’s request.” Jesse admitted. “Overwatch wasn’t allowed to act much in Hanamura, because of the Japanese government. But Blackwatch didn’t play by those rules.”

“Blackwatch extracted him?” Mei made the logical connection, and Jesse nodded.

“I did, actually. I was his contact, and I thought he was dead, to be honest. I’d picked him up to…well, bury him. His dragon came out and,” he was suddenly cut off.

“Dragon??” Mei exclaimed, her eyes suddenly filled with stars. “McCree! Are you being serious? A _dragon_?”

Jesse chuckled weakly as the light in front of them turned green and they were finally able to get on the main roadway. “Yep. It was green. At that point, it was more physical than not, usually it’s relatively intangible. But Genji was really close to death. Angela saved him, the miracle woman, but…well. If Blackwatch hadn’t been there, he would have just died.”

McCree’s hands were tight around the wheel. “We did good things. We didn’t always. But we always wanted to do what was right.”

Mei’s face was sympathetic, at least. “And…commander Reyes? There are all sorts of…rumors about him now.” She held Snowball tighter. “I thought he was a good person… but, well, the things I’ve seen people say are…”

“They’re mostly wrong.” Jesse said, eyes focused on the road ahead. “Not all wrong, but mostly. The end was…bad.” He rubbed the steering wheel. “You can’t tell this to Tracer or Winston, Mei. You were part of the old vanguard though, so… I can’t talk to Angela, she and I…ended poorly, but I know at some point, you will.”

He looked at her, and sighed. “Reyes was….he was sick. At the end. I didn’t know all of what was going on, but he hired a geneticist, Moira O’Deorain, to resolve whatever it was.” He looked back at the road. “I saw what his condition did. He…was falling apart. It was killing him, what the US did to him and Jack in the crisis. It wasn’t pretty. I unno if that…makes up for whatever it was he did. But…he wasn’t evil. I don’t wanna think that.”

Mei stared at snowball on her lap, and Jesse sighed out. “Well, we’ll get you to your hotel. I’m gonna be going down to Mexico, so I won’t be able to take you back but…I’m sure you can catch a shuttle.”

“Alright.” There was quiet, for a minute, before she continued. “I’ll…tell Angela.”

“Thanks, Mei.”

XXXXX

DECEMBER 2076

He had set up base in Castillo, just chillin’, since in Dorado, Mexico, there was a real nightmare situation setting itself up. He had to keep tabs on the political situation there in case Los Muertos got too rambunctious as Lúmerico went through its issue with the Sombra collective. If he was keeping his eyes peeled on the off chance Jack Morrison was gonna show back up…well, that _was_ why he had come here in the first place.

Unfortunately for him, it seemed like he was a shade too late to catch him. He had made a decent cut into Los Muertos, but the thing about Gangs was that if you didn’t change the base problem, there would always be new blood eager to take the place of those old folk you’d cut down.  Gabe had done good, but…well. As evidenced by Deadlock, not good enough. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a damn thing that a Black Ops organization could do to change the economy, or enforce better public schooling. That had been Overwatch’s schtick. And they’d not done enough, and ever since it’d gone away… well.

It was like the old recruitment posters that littered the walls of Dorado. The legacy would continue to fray and fade and get torn down and weather the test of time and rambunctious kids who felt more anger than they knew what to do with.

He walked into his favorite bar, not even phased when the bartender wished him a Merry Christmas. The man knew exactly what to give him, and Jesse closed his eyes, staring at the wooden ceiling before he leveled his charming smile back at him.

“Merry Christmas, bud. Fill me up.” 

XXXXX

“You know, if you had planned on looking for me, I would have expected a less… suspicious outfit.” An unfamiliar woman said, and Jesse heard the sound of ice being rolled around in a glass.

Jesse felt himself jerk upright. He looked over and saw his bartender cleaning up house, and he wiped drool off his face. The bartender didn’t say anything, but the woman who’d spoken just smirked. “You look _ridiculous_.” She said, teasingly.

Jesse blinked alcohol induced sleepiness out of his eyes. “Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately?” He drawled, wrapping his serape back up.

As the woman got a good look at him, she switched to Spanish and groused about how her look was for an _aesthetic_.

“Not with shoes like that.” Jesse disagreed with a snort, grabbing the water his bartender friend had left out with his human hand. “And, why on earth do you think I’m here for you, Darlin’?” He cracked his neck.

The woman gaped at him. “It-its obvious! You’re a bounty hunter, aren’t you?” She sounded outraged. “Why _wouldn’t_ you be here for me.” She crossed her arms. “Jesse McCree, bounty hunter, vigilante _._ ” 

Jesse blinked again, before he sighed. “I unno who the fuck you are. I wasn't here for you. The person I was here for already left. But I wanted to keep an eye on the situation ever since the problems with Lúmerico made Los Muertos act up." 

The woman tapped her fingers on the bar. “You’re here for Los Muertos, then?” She asked, seeming disbelieving. “Who were you _really_ here for? I’ve heard it takes a lot to get you out of the U.S. these days, McCree. If that is your real name.”

“Like I said, he’s gone, so don’t ask. And it’s as real as me, Darlin’.” He didn’t particularly take kindly to her accusation, but the woman seemed undeniably curious.

“Could it be…this man? He’s the only other stranger who made a bigger impression than you have.” She held up her fingers and opened up a holographic screen. On it, Jack Morrison’s face, obscured by the stupid mask was sitting expressionless on a hexagon.

McCree let a beat pass, before he leaned back, sipping on his water again. “You caught me.” He deadpanned. “But he’s long gone.”

The woman nodded. “Left for Egypt, actually.” She enigmatically leaned her head to the side, eying him carefully for any reaction as she put her hands back together and shut the hologram. “If it’s just him you want…I think we could work ourselves a deal, Jesse McCree.” She leaned back, before extending him a hand. “You may call me _Sombra_.” She said with a smirk.

“So you’re the one messin’ with Lúmerico, huh?” He asked, not batting an eye. Sombra was clearly put off by his lack of response, and she just rolled forward.

“Listen, I’ve already given you information, so you have to pay your new _friend_ back with a favor.” Sombra looked at him, and clasped her hands, before resting her chin on it. “So I have just _a few_  questions for you, Jesse McCree.”

“Shoot.” McCree deadpanned, sipping his water. “You’re terrible at intimidation, you know.”

Sombra just squinted her eyes some. “I just want to know a teensy little bit more about you.” She elaborated, staring him down. “There’s next to nothing in my systems. I know of you, but not about you. Where’d you learn to shoot like that, why are you tracking down Soldier: 76- to get a bounty? I get the feeling that’s not it if you’ve stuck around here long enough.”

McCree raised a brow. “Were you raised under some kinda rock?” He asked. “Did you not see me on the news- ugh. Never mind.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Jesse McCree. Ex Deadlock. Ex Blackwatch. Ring any bells?” He said, verging on sarcasm.

Sombra looked him over again. “You? Blackwatch?” She snorted. “It is pretty hard to believe that. But…I have heard the name. I assumed you were just some wannabe copycat.”

“Course not.” Jesse drawled. “No one could be me but me.”

“I didn’t think the reports tying _you_ to that person were true, was all.” She elaborated, and McCree almost felt offended. “But I’ll believe you, for now. Prove it to me though. Who is Soldier: 76.”  The way she asked indicated it wasn’t really a question.

“Jack Morrison.” He spat out, to her delight.

“Perfect! So we are on the same page, that’s just great.” She gave him a smile that felt almost oily. “He’s in Cairo right now, though, paying a visit to an old friend." 

She pulled up her chart again, and zoomed out just slightly. Next to Jacks face was a blue and black mask. “I hear _she’s_ a good shot.” Sombra taunted him lightly. “Now, what would you tell me if I told _you_ I could get you over the Atlantic…no questions asked?”

He knew that this woman wasn’t to be trusted, but he was Blackwatch, and she was terrible at hiding her tells. She needed information out of him, and it was something that apparently he could give her. And for one reason or another, she was giving him information about Jack and another…old face. He didn’t want to assume yet, but…it was telling evidence.

McCree felt his jaw set, and his fists balled up. “What _is_ it that you want to know?”

"Oh, I think I can work with that."  Sombra's cheshire smile only ever widened.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed!! let me know your feedback because it really helps me keep writing!!!


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